I recall seeing a special on TV awhile back about credit card/ debit card theft and fraud. One of the most common schemes for quite awhile utilized fake or tampered ATM machines. In some cases the crooks actually manufactured "Credit Card Cleaning Machines" that they then went around and attached to ATM's. They looked professional (read: legit) and had instructions that told the user to run their card through the cleaner, and it would help it read better. Of course instead of cleaning the magnetic stripe it just recorded their info which the crooks would retrieve later.

Another scam was run in several convenience stores in the NY area I think. The convenience stores contracted to use ATM machines in their stores from an unlicensed company. When a customer tried to withdraw money the machine would simply play along until after they entered their PIN, and then say "Transaction cannot be completed at this time". Of course now the machine had recorded not only the info on the card's stripe, but also the user's PIN.

Craig

 

Looks like you're not the only one who got scammed in Tampa.

Video from tbo.com:

http://multimedia.tbo.com/multimedia/popup...005/0928atm.htm

 

yea i heard a blurb on the radio, but i didn't get to hear the all the details

 

Oh, I never made the connection until you mentioned that. Earlier today I saw that these guys were supposedly in the Orlando area right now... so watch out!