Card skimmers are popping up in the Pittsburgh area more often. Here's how police say you can spot them.
Electronic card skimmers are a perfect match for color, texture and size and they only take seconds to snap into place. And just like it only takes a few seconds for a criminal to place one of these skimmers at your favorite convenience store, it only takes a few seconds out of your day to feel for and look for the warning signs.
From gas pumps to convenience stores, card skimmers can pop up overnight anywhere you'd swipe some plastic.
"Well, we noticed more probably within the last five years," said West Mifflin Police Chief Gregory McCulloch.
McCulloch said regular people kickstart most skimmer investigations.
"They'll notice something is off with the credit card readers. Or they'll go home and notice a charge on the credit card," McCulloch said.
The department warns residents right away, so pictures of a skimmer found at the 7-Eleven on Camp Hollow Road started making the rounds on social media recently. His detective continues to watch thousands of hours of surveillance video to crack the case.
"Do these people get caught a lot of the times or is it really hard to catch these people?" KDKA-TV's Meghan Schiller asked McCulloch.
"It's really hard because a lot of them are not from the area," he said.
"The way they extract the information is they can do it by Bluetooth, so they don't even have to go back into the establishment. They can just pull into the parking lot," he added.
How to spot a credit card skimmer
The FBI says these skimmers cost consumers and banks more than $1 billion each year. Spotting one is hard, so try feeling for it instead.
"You see how the plastic is there. If you just give it a good tug like the gentleman did in this case, it just came right off," he said.
McCulloch grabbed a recent skimmer from the evidence room to demonstrate how it works.
"It would slide over the top of the other numbers that are on there and inside, there's a little computer that will get all your information so when you slide your card in and as you're paying for your purchases, your data would be sent to that."
There's a little shiny chip that can collect all of your data — everything a criminal needs to drain your account or make unauthorized purchases.
McCulloch said to remember the 3 Ts: tug, tap and track.
"If you tug hard enough and there's a skimmer on, it will pop off or it'll loosen up and you'll know the difference," he said.
Criminals keep trying different styles, so it's harder to notice if you're quickly going about your day. But they all need attached in some way, or set on top of the machine, so that's why you want to use your hands more than your eyes. Shake it around, try to tug at it and see if you see any separation or any wiggle. And if you do, alert the store right away.
As for the third T, track, keep an eye on your bank transactions. If you unfortunately run into a card skimmer, you'll start seeing fraudulent charges.
And always tap to pay if you can, because you avoid the magnetic strip or chip reader altogether that way.
