Tips to avoid fuel-pump theft
Here are suggestions from Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds and others on how to avoid identity theft at the gas pump:
“There are different methods that consumers could take to prevent themselves from becoming a victim of this particular type of theft. But all of them are not as convenient as simply using your credit card at the pump,” Reynolds says.
- Pay with cash inside the store, rather than using the card-reader on the pump. Or, pay inside using your credit card.
- You also can pay using gift cards, to prevent thieves from getting your checking account or credit card information.
- Check bank statements when they arrive, looking for unauthorized activity.
- If you see suspicious activity near the pumps, tell a store employee.
- "We're encouraging stores and gas stations to be more diligent in their review of their devices," Reynolds said. "I think we all want to know what stores are taking extra steps to prevent this type of activity from happening."
5 things to know about credit-card skimmers
1. Thieves can install the devices in seconds on gas pumps.
2. ATM machines are also vulnerable.
3. Skimmers are attached inside pumps, preventing detection by users
4. Some skimmer devices are wireless.
5. U.S. Secret Service and local authorities handle criminal investigations of skimmers.
Area county auditors are encouraging store owners to upgrade the locks on their gas pumps to make it harder for identity thieves to install skimmers in gas pumps.
There’s one easy step stores can take to slow down the scammers: Use unique locks for pumps so a different key is needed to open each, rather than using standard keys, which can be purchased cheaply on the Internet.
Skimmers in recent months have been found in Butler, Warren, Hamilton, Montgomery and other Ohio counties.
“I’ve written to all the gas stations that don’t have individually locking pumps and asked them to consider that,” said Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes. “The ones that are easiest to pick off, we understand, are the ones that have one master key for every pump on the lot.
“And so I’ve written to them and asked them to get away from that because that master key apparently is out there,” Rhodes said. “I also suggested that they heighten security.”
In Rhodes’ Dec. 11 memo to the gasoline sellers, he credited “United Dairy Farmers, Kroger and Speedway, along with many Shell owners” with already using unique locks.
Even those companies aren’t eager to discuss the issue.
“We don’t want to provide information that could be useful to those who mean our customers ill,” said Jamal Kheiry, explaining Enon-based Speedway LLC’s reluctance to comment on the measures it takes.
“Essentially all I can tell you is we do have processes and procedures in place to protect our customers, and we work with law enforcement as necessary,” said Kheiry, a company spokesman.
It’s difficult for a gas customer to see whether a skimmer has been installed inside a gas pump to capture credit-card information. That’s because, contrary to a popular misconception, the sticker with the auditor’s name is not the seal that shows whether someone has entered the pump since auditors’ employees last checked the pumps’ accuracy in dispensing gasoline.
“The seal itself is not the sticker,” said Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds. “The sticker, we’re just putting there because the state requires that we show you that it’s been inspected.”
The protective seal actually is placed inside the pump, in an area away from where criminals attach the skimmers.
“The reason we wouldn’t put the skimmer over the credit-card mechanism is because they have to get in there frequently,” Reynolds explained. “That’s where they’ll go in there and change credit-card paper, receipt tape.”
So customers largely must rely on company employees’ vigilance in looking out for scammers trying to get into the machines.
“We’re telling them to try to at least use (security) tape or something,” so employees can readily detect when pumps have been opened by non-employees, Rhodes said, “and also to be observant of any strange activity around those pumps. They’ll pull in a U-Haul, and then they’ll pull in another one, and it blocks the pump, and in two minutes, they’ve popped the thing open, dropped the skimmer in there and taken off.”
Two state agencies are working together and with local authorities to catch those responsible, including organized Cuban crime rings, according to authorities.
“There seems to have been a pattern with a group of Cubans that have been hitting the Ohio area as well as Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky,” Frank Applegate, an investigator with the Ohio Highway Patrol, previously told this news outlet. “They’ve been coming up from Louisville, coming up from Texas, and hitting Ohio pretty hard, as well as surrounding states.”
Evidence of the Cuban rings working in Ohio has been gathered in traffic stops in recent months, Applegate said.
“They don’t stay in one place too long. They’ll hit an area and move on,” he said. “Or they run along interstates.”
This article contains previous reporting by Staff Writer Lawrence Budd.
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