Sophisticated card skimming scam currently underway in Western Australia
Mikey 20 comments
Foe those outside of Australia, you might not know that us West Australians are caught in the middle of our largest every card skimming scam.
So far more than 2.5 million dollars has been scammed from targeted McDonalds Eftpos services around Perth. Police will not share the details of exactly how the large scale fraud is happening, but McDonalds stores are reportedly replacing every Eftpos handset which is being inspected by the Fraud Squad after each installation.
A chain email in high circulation claiming that a number of other stores (Coles, Peak and BP) have been compromised is apparently (and not at all surprising) not based on any truth. Police say there is no evidence to support the email warning, and that McDonalds stores are the only ones to have been affected.
Major Fraud Squad Detective Senior Sergeant Don Heise said:
"Over this period of time, which is probably four to six weeks, substantial amounts of information has been obtained from the customers and ... a lot of that has already been used. To date, 3500 customers have had their credit cards compromised to a total of $2.5 million and this will continue for probably the next few weeks and for the next couple of months."
As far as skimming scams go it's certainly very well organised and sophisticated - one could say impressive. Not coincidentally we paid cash at McDonalds tonight, and judging by this photo I took it seems the management is erring on the side of caution as well.
So remember kids - play it safe. If you've been into a McD's in the last few weeks and paid with your card, make it a point to get your pin number changed or credit card replaced.
Elvoski
Thursday 15th October 2009 | 08:30 PM...in response to this comment by aries. Cut and pasted from that email I see. Didn't you read the article?
"A chain email in high circulation claiming that a number of other stores (Coles, Peak and BP) have been compromised is apparently (and not at all surprising) not based on any truth. Police say there is no evidence to support the email warning, and that McDonalds stores are the only ones to have been affected."
aries
Thursday 15th October 2009 | 08:49 PMI didn't get that bit no, however I am not willing to take that risk to be honest. I'd rather be too scared than not scared enough where my precious little money is concerned...
andrew
Thursday 15th October 2009 | 09:19 PMdoesnt this just affect people who use a pin number rather than sign your card?
andrew
Thursday 15th October 2009 | 09:23 PMalso i hear that people came in wanting to service the machines did so and stuck whatever they had to into the eftpos machine.
Rodney
Thursday 15th October 2009 | 11:52 PMAfter the spate of tampered ATMs with skimmers (only a few weeks before this happened) - one of which I used (but thankfully nothing happened and I replaced that EFTPOS card since), I must admit this has seriously shaken my faith in EFTPOS.
As Andrew says, the Police are staying tight lipped but rumour is this time people walked into MacDonalds and told the (probably 15 year old staff) that they were there to service the EFTPOS system - and were given free reign. Once again, social engineering and the human gullibility have trumped technical security. :-(
Time to rethink the EFTPOS system, I say. Perhaps tokens, like web banking requires could be applied to bank cards, too?
Mikey
Friday 16th October 2009 | 05:37 AM...in response to this comment by Rodney. "rumour is this time people walked into MacDonalds and told the (probably 15 year old staff) that they were there to service the EFTPOS system - and were given free reign. Once again, social engineering and the human gullibility have trumped technical security. :-( "
Kevin Mitnick would be proud. I've been trying to think how all those machines got compromised and the fake service men theory came to mind as well, but they would have likely been captured by the security cameras. But at the same time it's the only way all those different restaurants could have been affected - outside of some massively organised cooperation between all the staff members.
I have to say I'm keen to know how it all went down.
Jake Farr-Wharton
Friday 16th October 2009 | 07:27 AMWhat absolute low-lives!
The lengths that people go to just so that they don't have to work like the rest of us.
I would love to make a career out of beating the shit out of little f*cks like this with a trudgeon and steel capped boots.
aries
Friday 16th October 2009 | 07:46 AMJust for the record, one of my friends has posted a comment on my link to this article I put on facebook saying that her account has been emptied and she has not been to a McDonalds store anytime in the last few weeks...
Mikey
Friday 16th October 2009 | 07:56 AM...in response to this comment by aries. I think she needs to report that to the police - not Facebook :-)
Davo
Friday 16th October 2009 | 09:30 AMIt was in an email so it must be true!
Rodney
Friday 16th October 2009 | 11:51 AM...in response to this comment by Mikey. I think security cameras will be useless because they probably are designed for robberies and, as such, only hold a day to a weeks' photage. Most likely this happened over a series of months and the tapes are long since wiped.
Mikey
Monday 19th October 2009 | 07:43 AMConsidering the magnitude of this event, it's surprising it isn't getting as much coverage as you'd expect. But that might be due to the lack of information being released about the investigation.
Rodney
Monday 19th October 2009 | 09:39 AM...in response to this comment by Mikey. The reason it's getting no attention is it's in Perth, not Sydney and all our media is based in Sydney and probably most people there haven't even heard of Perth.
Jake Farr-Wharton
Monday 19th October 2009 | 09:42 AM...in response to this comment by Rodney. What the hell is a "Perth"?
Mikey
Monday 19th October 2009 | 12:13 PM...in response to this comment by Jake Farr-Wharton. This is Perth: https://rustylime.com/video.php?id=3669
NEville the devil
Monday 19th October 2009 | 05:15 PM...in response to this comment by Mikey. well smart man. DO you think not a employee at mcdonalds oh i dont know an asian kid of 15 working thier is in it not for the job but the scim scam?
So obvious...
Work men to servce machine lol. id be looking at employees first!!
Neville the devil
Monday 19th October 2009 | 05:18 PMand i bet in your christian mind you are thinking of the unemployed people or skinny whit punk kid. Asian University students... The smart comp wiz. Oh but your to busy beating up someone to death based on belief like i am.
Mikey
Monday 19th October 2009 | 06:40 PM...in response to this comment by Neville the devil. Oh no - I hope that is the only Youtube-esque comment on this subject.
15 year old employees? Some would be dumb enough to consider it that's for sure. But smart, coordinated and resourceful enough to pull off a large scale skimming scam across several McDonalds stores in Perth? I reckon it's unlikely. Maybe some of the older more disgruntled staffers.
By the way, nice way to jump to conclusions there, Neville. For the records I'm as far from Christian as you can get (https://rustylime.com/show_article.php?id=393). OK there are people further than me, but I'm curious to know what in my comment made you think I was a Christian. Do tell.
Jake Farr-Wharton
Tuesday 20th October 2009 | 07:43 AM...in response to this comment by Mikey. It was probably your ability to spell and use diction whilst constructing a valid argument.
aries
Thursday 15th October 2009 | 08:01 PMBelow is a list of sites where the card skimming has occurred in WA.
List of venues to avoid:
McDonalds Canning Vale
McDonalds Maddington
McDonalds City
McDonalds Success
McDonalds Cannington
McDonalds South Perth
Coles Southern River
Coles Gosnells
Coles Thornlie
Coles Maddington
Coles Forest Lakes
Peak Service Station Bayswater
Peak Service Station Kwinana
Peak Service Station Maddington
Peak Service Station Mundaring
Peak Service Station Roleystone
BP Service Station Wembley
BP Service Station Carlisle
BP Service Station Manning
BP Service Station Osborne Park