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NORTH LOGAN — Police say crooks use card skimmers that steal your credit card information as you swipe your card right at the gas pump, and they have found one in Cache Valley.
The trouble is as consumers, you can't really look for these skimming devices. They're usually somewhere inside the pump, and they quickly grab your credit card information and your PIN, giving crooks a chance to use them as their own.
Sergeant John Seamons, with the North Park Police, says an employee at a Chevron near 1800 North and Main Street was changing the receipt paper on the machine when he noticed something attached to the top of the credit card reader.
"We believe this may have been in the machine possibly for a week," Seamons said. "This is a homemade device. It's not anything that's bought in a store."
Thieves with the know-how can build them and leave them to grab your personal information. With the help of a few fake cards, they're in business.
"There are several programs on the Internet to download devices and to make credit cards themselves," Seamons said. "Just put this information on the back of those strips and use them as credit cards."
Seamons says the only thing consumers can do is keep an eye on their credit card balance.
Now police are trying to track down the owner and hopefully keep any unsuspecting drivers from becoming victims.
"I kind of thought if we found one, we might find more," Seamons said. "As of now, we have not found any more."
The information on the North Logan skimmer will not be used; it's been intercepted. The crook would have to pick it up and plug this port into a computer to pull it off. In the meantime, police are warning gas stations in the area to look out for those devices.
