How does skimming credit cards work

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By providing you with the ability to apply for a credit card or loan, we are not guaranteeing that your application will be approved. Your application for credit products is subject to the Provider's terms and conditions as well as their application and lending criteria. But you can learn how to avoid credit card skimmers. But if your card leaves your sight at a restaurant or department store, an employee could use a skimmer to get your card info, too.

If you can pay for your gas inside a station or use an ATM inside a bank lobby, take the extra minute to go inside for the transaction. Thieves look for undetected, uninterrupted access to point-of-sale terminals. But if someone uses your account and you don't report the theft, after 60 days you may not be reimbursed at all. Using a credit card with chip technology will make it harder for thieves to skim your data in the first place.

But if a thief still gets your credit card info, he can use only that existing account to make unauthorized charges. Set up notifications on your checking account and credit cards. If you see fraudulent charges on your statement, report it to the card company immediately and shut down the account.

Criminals can open new accounts, get payday loans, and even file tax returns in your name. Start your protection now. Like with POS systems, this targets a step in the transaction chain where the data is not protected, before it gets sent to the payment processor through an encrypted channel or before it's encrypted and stored in the site's database. Web skimming has affected hundreds of thousands of websites to date, including high-profile brands such as British Airways, Macy's , NewEgg and Ticketmaster.

Consumers can't do much to directly prevent such compromises because they don't control the affected software, whether that's the software in POS terminals or code present on e-commerce websites. It's the responsibility of the merchants and their technology vendors to provide a safe shopping experience, but consumers can take some actions to reduce the risk their own cards will be exposed or to limit the impact if a compromise does happen:.

Lucian Constantin is a senior writer at CSO, covering information security, privacy, and data protection. Here are the latest Insider stories. More Insider Sign Out. Sign In Register. Sign Out Sign In Register.

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