fraud: December 2007 Archives

This morning reporter Tania Chatila got a call from a woman letting her know detectives were at an El Monte ARCO station investigating a potential stolen credit and debit scam. The scam works by capturing magnetic information from the strip on the back of your card. Here's Tania's dispatch from the field:

In the time I've spent covering fraudulent crime stories, I've built up quite a list of do's and dont's when it comes to credit and debit card use. One of those dont's is the idea that when given the choice, people should use their debit cards as a credit transaction, requiring no pin number, instead of a debit transaction, requiring a pin number. This is to protect from debit card fraud.

But when the criminals are coming up with advanced enough technology to steal your information both ways, what's the point? El Monte Police detectives are investigating at least 15 cases of credit card fraud linked to an Arco Gas station near the El Monte airport. In this case, police believe the suspects used technology that could read both electronic strips on the back of cards and pin numbers.

So either way, the patrons of this popular gas station were doomed.