Nearly half of all Americans have had their credit card information compromised in the past five years, according to Credit Donkey — 47% have reported fraud, totaling upwards of $28 billion in losses. And 73% of Americans say they are still worried about falling victim to credit card scams, according to Credit Repair.
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One of the ways in which scammers have had much success in recent years has been with credit card skimming, using a “device installed on card readers that collects credit card numbers,” especially when you use the magnetic stripe, per Forbes. The scammer then retrieves the info and uses it for their own purchases or sells the information to a third party. The criminal practice has happened at stores, ATMs, restaurants and gas stations.
It’s so common at gas stations, reports Lending Tree, that it’s changed how people pay at the pump. In a survey the site conducted, 15% of people said they were victims of credit card skimming while filling up on gas and 43% said the fear of being a victim changed how they paid at the station, whether using cash or using a credit card at an inside terminal rather than at the actual pump.
Part of the issue is that gas stations were one of the final points of purchase that upgraded to EMV technology, aka Europay, Mastercard and Visa, the three major credit…