DON'T LET YOUR BANK CARD OUT OF SIGHT

This is happening folks! A colleague of mine had this happen to him over the Xmas period. Fortuately (or unfortuately for the waitron concerned), he know which restuarant and from the transaction, they will be able to pinpoint who the waitron is as well.

Firstly 2 or 3 R1.00 transactions went through the account - this is how they test to see if there is going to be any reaction from the cardholder. Then an amount of R1000.00 went through from a computer shop. Luckily my colleague has the "SMS notification" facility and he was advised of the transactions, and was therefore able to stop them and has not lost any money.

Prevention is still better than cure though and it is always better to be aware of what you are doing and don't trust anyone hanging around the ATM's.

Regards

Nikki

Bhavna Sookha

November 17 2006 at 01:58PM

Crime syndicates are employing new methods to get secret customer information off credit and debit cards for use on fake cards. The criminals are skimming information off the magnetic strips on the back of customers' cards, downloading it on to a personal computer or laptop, before using this information to produce duplicate cards to withdraw money from bank accounts. A man suspected of cloning bank cards using a "skimming" device was arrested in September in Richards Bay. The device seized by police was so small that it could be hidden in the palm of one's hand.

According to Standard Bank's Ross Linstrom "skimming" now accounts for an even greater proportion of cash machine fraud in South Africa than conventional card swapping. Standard Bank security expert Pat Pather said card skimming is now the most frequently used method of ATM fraud being perpetrated across the globe.

Pather said the problem was the easy access to the skimming machines which could be purchased on the Internet. Linstrom said a number of different scenarios were used by criminals. He said the bank had been informed of people posing as bank employees at ATM machines telling clients that they needed to verify their details by swiping their bank cards through this skimming device.

He said the device then sent the customer's information to a computer at a different location. "These people then hang around and 'shoulder surf' to try and get the PIN number from that particular client which is then called through to the person duplicating the card," he said. "A white card or blank card is then used and the client's details transferred on to the magnetic strip." He said in other instances syndicates approached waitrons. "The waitrons are handed the devices which they use whenever a customer makes a payment with their card. "It takes seconds for these people to swipe the card through the skimming device while the customer is waiting at their table," said Linstrom. "At the end of their shift the waitrons hand the device over to a syndicate member who pays them for their services."

This article was originally published on page 5 of Daily News on November 17, 2006