Home Brentwood Brentwood POA: Protect Yourself At the Pumps

Brentwood POA: Protect Yourself At the Pumps

by ECT

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No, the B.P.O.A. hasn’t discovered a way to get you lower gas prices (after all, were police officers – not miracle workers!). But we have discovered many citizens are not aware of this popular method that identity thieves use to steal your information.

Identity thieves use devices called “skimmers” to collect personal information from credit cards. In the past, skimmers were mounted over the real credit card readers on gas pumps (and ATMs, etc.). This old style of skimmer was usually easily recognized if the customer knew what to look for and was paying attention. Unfortunately, thanks to advances in technology, identity thieves now use a new type of skimmer. The new style of skimmer is smaller, and is installed on the inside of the gas pump, behind the electronics panel of the pump. After the skimmer collects the personal information from the credit cards used at the pump, the thief can go retrieve the skimmer and download it to his computer. To make matters worse, many styles of these skimmers can actually wirelessly transmit the collected information! This means the identity thief can just sit across the street in a different parking lot and download the stolen information.

Since these new skimmers are installed INSIDE the gas pump, there is no way for a citizen to determine if there is a skimmer on a particular pump. Fortunately, the gas station industry has come up with a solution in the form of “security stickers”. These security stickers are tamper proof stickers that are placed on the front panels of the gas pumps, connecting the panel to the main body of the pump. If the pump is opened by an unauthorized person (which is easily done), then the security sticker is broken. If it is opened by an authorized person, then the broken security sticker is replaced with a new security sticker.

If you look at the attached photo of the front of the gas pump, you can just see the end of the security sticker above the Safeway logo. The second picture shows a close up photo of an intact security sticker.

So if you want to ensure your credit card information isn’t being stolen at the gas pump, look for an intact security sticker. If you find a broken security sticker, do not use that gas pump and notify the attendant.

Please share this information to help protect your family and friends.

(This type of “new” skimmer has actually been in use for a few years now, but we’ve found public education to be lacking and decided to provide this information to our citizens)

Information and Photographs provided by the Brentwood Police Officers Association

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5 comments

cme Jul 22, 2014 - 11:10 am

Are these at all gas stations? Is there a list of stations using them in the area?

Julio Jul 22, 2014 - 4:40 pm

Not ALL gas stations or all pumps, just the ones they have been clever enough hit. It is just something you have to be on the look out for. Don’t assume anything.

April Jul 22, 2014 - 7:50 pm

Can’t the thieves just put an official looking sticker of their own after installation of skimmer?? How would we know it’s official or not??

Julio Jul 22, 2014 - 9:37 pm

I am sure they have already figured it out and manufactured their own Safeway sticker. All stations are different.

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