Shutting down a bank or credit card account as soon as a fraudulent charge turns up is the key to stopping crooks from stealing. “You have to be vigilant about monitoring your accounts, said Stephen Lee, president and CEO of First Financial Bank of Southeast Texas.
In the past two weeks, a number of people living in Orange County have had fraudulent charges on their bank debit cards from skimmers on gas pumps stealing their account information. The Orange Police Department has been checking gas pumps in the city and found three. All three were installed on the inside of the pumps and could not be seen by customers.
Lee said banks offer a smartphone app that notifies a customer every time their debit card is used. The minute a charge the customer didn’t make comes up, the customer should shut down the account. He said First Financial even has a way for a customer to freeze an account from their smart phone.
Monday afternoon Orange police were taking more complaints of people who have been victims of fraud. Captain Enmon said officers have not determined whether the complaints are related to the three skimmers that were discovered or were from other ones. He said sometimes people don’t know for days or even a couple of weeks whether fraudulent charges have been made on their accounts.
That’s a reason the banker and the detective want people to check their accounts daily. Bank customers will be able to immediately prevent future thefts on their card and they will be able to report the charges to police. Orange police found the skimmers after getting several complaints about fraud. Detectives were able to track the charges to a particular store. By finding the skimmers, the police prevented more thefts.
Lee said the days of going through your checking account once a month with a paper statement are gone.
“Fraud is just unfortunately part of our life now,” he said.
Orange is a small town off Interstate 10 and is handy to the crooks to put skimmers that steal the credit and debit card data. However, the skimmers have been found in big cities and even on ATMs, Lee said.
Banks and credit card companies are beginning to use an EMV chip in cards. Those cards cannot have their numbers skimmed and stolen. However, Lee said thieves can pick up the data in the chips without a card even being used.
He suggests that people keep two forms of payment available so in case a card has to be shut down because of fraud, the consumer still has a way to pay.
Cash is alternative, but not necessarily free from crime. “Everyone wants to carry cash now, but you become susceptible to the guy with a gun,” Lee said. He added that he’s “seen too many people walk out of the bank with too much cash.”
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