 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
With one swipe, your credit can be in a thief's hands
By JAMIE MALERNEE
© St. Petersburg Times, It can happen at any restaurant or department store. A person uses a credit card to pay for a purchase. The clerk or server leaves to swipe the card, returning with a receipt and a smile. Little does the buyer know that while the employee was gone, she secretly copied the information on the credit card's magnetic strip using a portable scanning device. Later, she will copy the data onto a counterfeit credit card -- and voila! -- head out on a shopping spree. "They give you back the card and you walk away fat, dumb and happy," said Lt. Joe Paez of the Sheriff's Office. "Many people will never know what happened. Seventy-seven percent of the general public never bother checking their statements." Local law enforcement officials are warning residents about such scams after the recent arrest of a man accused of buying merchandise with stolen information. The man, Ricardo Penamalboa, 43, was trying to buy the items at the Spring Hill Home Depot on Sunday when a clerk thought the cards looked suspicious, a report stated. She asked to see his driver's license, and that also looked strange. When the clerk tried to call a manager, authorities say, Penamalboa pushed the clerk, grabbed the cards and fled. An employee tried to stop him, and an off-duty deputy heard them fighting. The deputy flashed his badge and ran after the man. When the man didn't stop, the deputy pulled his gun, and Penamalboa surrendered, a report said. When police later looked at his cards, they found they were fakes, a report said. The name on the cards did not match the name on the accounts they charged to. Authorities think the case is just one of many to come. To protect against such fraud, police recommend that buyers keep an eye on their cards. The scanning devices are small enough to fit in a jacket. In a split second, the copying is done. "Don't let that card out of your sight," said Detective Tony Scarpati, who specializes in such fraud cases. "About 3,200 people in the nation are victims of fraud every day. California ranks No. 1. Florida is second." Also, Scarpati warned people to always look at their statements to make sure they actually made all their purchases. Businesses should check the name on the card against the name on the receipt. When stolen information has been copied onto a card, the two don't match up. "But most of your clerks are young kids. Lines build up and . . . they just start swiping and swiping," he said. The problem has become costly enough that some credit card companies are looking into technology that would make such theft difficult, if not impossible, by using embedded microchips. Such advances are one or two years away from hitting the American market, Scarpati said. Meanwhile, more information on avoiding credit card fraud can be found on the Federal Trade Commission's Web site.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From today's Hernando Times |
