It is holiday season, and you are running around town shopping like crazy and doing errands. You are running low on gas, and you stop at your local gas station to fill up the tank. You think nothing of it until a month or so passes, and your credit card has charges on it for things you never bought, restaurants you never dined in and destinations you never visited. Chances are pretty 
good that you’ve been skimmed. Gas pump skimming is rampant!
Skimming devices are usually “installed” in gas pumps and sometimes in ATM’s. Thieves are able to “legally” buy master keys online that open up gas pumps. They are able to attach wires and a microchip (the skimmer) inside the pump’s credit card reader, and your credit card information is then fair game for every crook in town (or whoever buys that information from the crook).
In an article written by Gabe Gutierrez for MSNBC (November 24, 2015) entitled: “Use of credit cards ‘skimmers’ at gas stations, ATMs is exploding,” we learn that not only are keys to the pumps sold online but unbelievably, the skimming devices are sold on websites such as eBay!
“Last year, the devices cost consumers $2 billion, according to ATM Marketplace,” reported Gutierrez. “Officials are now urging gas stations to replace locks — and use security seals to protect their pumps.”
Your Best Protection is Old School
In the short term, officials are urging customers to give up the credit cards at the pump and to use cash. Don’t go to pumps that are far away from the view of the attendant and keep track of your bank accounts.
All of that is very sound advice, but there is something missing in the discussion. Skimming is not new, it has only exploded. In small towns and large cities skimming has reportedly quadrupled since just this past summer.
However, I have yet to see even a warning sign; I have seen no changes to the pumps themselves in terms of security seals and I am beginning to wonder why the onus for the protection from this practice is falling on the consumer.
It is very difficult for me to believe that the major oil companies are unable to come up with even a stopgap technology to stop skimming until a new generation of pumps that are somehow more tamper-proof can come along. They earn billions of dollars in revenues each year, could they not spend a little money to better protect us?
Perhaps the key to all of this is the fact that even though our cards are being “skimmed,” the charges for the gas itself are going through to the companies. They essentially lose nothing. The thieves aren’t interested in your $12 gasoline purchase, when they can use your credit card number to buy a $1200 airline ticket!
We can even make an ethical argument that says that the oil companies and major retailers are doing almost nothing about this problem because they would rather not call attention to it. It may be a matter of not rocking the boat. Sometimes those ostriches hiding their heads in the sand may actually know what they are doing!
What we can do as consumers
It is all well and good for consumer agencies to warn us to not use our credit cards when purchasing fuel, or to make sure the attendant always keeps an eye on the pump, but neither is a practical solution. The solution is to pressure the companies to do something about the problem and on the other end, to pressure governmental agencies responsible for regulation of the pumps to take action.
This issue is one we can all agree on at holiday time. Goodness knows, people seem to be in dissent about most everything else these days!
… and an interesting cybersecurity challenge.