ATM Skimming: New High-Tech ATM Fraud That You Should Know About

In the past couple of days, the city of Joy Kolkata has raised concerns over rising bank ATM frauds as some 78 customers of leading public and private sector banks have allegedly lost over Rs. 20 lakhs. And as per experts, fraudsters have employed the skimming technique which makes use of the device called skimmer.

ATM Skimming: New High-Tech ATM Fraud That You Should Know About

The ATM skimming procedure involves theft of card information as and when the card is swiped in a legitimate transaction. The skimmer herein captures the information that is stored on the card's magnetic strip.

How ATM skimming is done?

While you need the information on the debit or credit card magnetic strip, you also need the card PIN number to attempt the fraudulent transactions. And fraudsters, in a bid to get access to the PIN number not only deploy the skimmer but also either hack the bank camera or install their own camera at the bank ATM premise, to capture this sensitive information as well. And when they get a record of all basic and important details, they either undertake such transactions on an online basis or use them to create debit or credit card clones.

Ways to identify skimmer if installed on the ATM swiping machine

Alertness is all is needed on your part to safeguard yourself from such frauds and spotting the skimmer will not at all be a difficult task even for the naïve. In a tampered machine, the card reader section wherein you insert your ATM for swiping shall be in an extended state than usual. Also, it can be slightly loose in a machine which has been configured with the skimmer.

In other instance, you can also find the keypad of the ATM machine abnormally protruding out, so avoid such a machine as it can be a fake one.

How to avoid such a fraudulent transaction?

It is always advised that while operating the ATM machine for any transaction you cover up the keypad such that miscreant cannot trace back your entered PIN under any of the circumstances. Also, if encountered you need to report any such illegitimate transaction to your bank at the earliest possible as according to the RBI, " more shall be the delay in reporting, more will be the risk of loss".

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