Identity Theft: Protecting Your Credit
The police are saying there is a huge increase in high tech crimes this year throughout the country. Crooks use illegal electronic devices to take credit card users' confidential information. The criminals use this knowledge to obtain money from the consumer's credit card accounts.
It is hard to pinpoint the exact sum of crooks because usually the victims don't report it to the police, they go straight to their bank. If you notice fraudulent activity with your credit or financial accounts,
go straight to the police. The banks cannot do much about it.
The latest inventions in criminal technology have made this outpour of felonies possible.
Today, one of the easiest ways to break into a person's debit or credit card account is by using a tool called a "skimmer." This device can be affixed to the magnetic card reader, like the ones found on ATMs. Once connected, the skimmer will collect the data stored in the magnetic strips of the debit and credit cards as the users slide these cards between the readers on the ATM.
Ultimately, the crooks accumulate the skimmers and exploit the data that the gadgets have generated to produce their own clone of the credit and debit cards. After accruing the customers' PIN numbers, the swindlers have enough data to commit fraud.
The difference? Skimmers were quite large. Recently, scam artists have figured out how to make these devices tiny and very disguisable. They can be fastened to an unguarded ATM without being discovered for days and possibly longer and then it would be too late.
Because of the weakness of video surveillance, it is difficult to capture the suspects before they get away with it. The country is only catching 5 out of 100 cases.
Be very careful with your credit card and identity. There is enough to worry about without dealing with that. It can take months to clear up your credit from identity theft.
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