TAGBILARAN CITY, December 28 (PIA)–—The season of bonuses and extra cash is also the season for the frauds, and anti-crime authorities warn: always be aware of your credit card and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards transactions.
No less than National Bureau of Investigations Bohol executive Officer Atty Arcelito Albao issued the warning after the agency has allegedly tracked credit cards and ATM card fraud.
At the Provincial Peace and Order Council Meeting recently at the Conference Hall of the Governor’s Mansion, Atty Albao bared of the presence of card data skimming fraudsters in Bohol now.
The modus is for these people to work with tellers or point of sale swipe stations and transfer the data from the card to a remote server which copies the details of the account.
Or, a data skimming device is attached to an ATM machine card slot, and as soon as a card is inserted and the account holder keys in the personal identification number, the skimming device activates and duplicates the account information into a nearby computer.
The fraud does not happen right there and then, but takes a few more hours after the remote computer can create a duplicate bogus account and card which the fraudster uses to debit money, pay for online transactions and withdraw amounts from the cloned account.
Over this, former Tagbilaran City police chief Colonel George Vale advised customers and card holders: do not ever lose visual contact of your cards.
Earlier, a high end resort manager has raised a red-flag over debit transactions using spurious cards.
At a separate PPOC meeting, the manager narrated that somebody booked a room in their resort, but upon check-out, paid through swiping a card which apparently was bogus and it took time for them to validate the account.
When they found out the account as spurious, the customer has long gone leaving a trail of charges to be credited to a fake card that was stolen from somebody else’s account.
“It only takes a few seconds to transfer the account information,” Col. Vale confirmed.
Another modus which can stave off significant amount from a card is when an ATM machine appears to capture the card.
As this happens, a lookout is just nearby ready to get to the ATM machine as soon as the card owner moves out, sometimes to get to the bank office to complain.
What appears to be a captured card is an intended clog in the machine that when an account holder walks out to complain, another one takes over the ATM and withdraws the money.
In Cebu, police authorities have busted a syndicate using this modus and it reportedly included a bank guard who acts in collusion with the criminals by stalling complainants so the lookout can divest the “captured card” of the withdrawn cash.
Atty Albao added, when doing bank ATM transactions, make sure that a Closed Circuit Television Camera is nearby recording the proceedings.
He said, a fraudster is just nearby and getting his image in the camera would be a great help.
On this, Governor Edgar Chatto said the PPOC would be reiterating in an Executive Order the mandate for banks and department store cashier stations to put in CCTVs.
While this is happening, NBI warns: be wary. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)
