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Florida Police Found Twice as Many Credit Card Skimmers in 2017 than Previous Two Years Combined

December 11th, 2017 by Jake Stofan
More than 500 credit card skimmers were discovered on Florida gabs pumps in the first ten months of this year.
It’s twice as many as the previous two years combined. Florida on gas pumps.
Carlos Collins owns Unity Child Care Development School in Tallahassee. After fueling up his company vans his business partner noticed suspicious activity on his company card.
“So he went to about four Circle K’s and he went to two Publix. Then he went to Golden Corral and apparently had lunch,” said Collins.
In one day a scammer racked up $3,000, mostly on cartons of cigarettes.
“It was kind of disheartening, but I was determined that I could not sit back idly and just wait,” said Collins.
Carlos was able to acquire surveillance footage from the stores his card was used at and hand them over to law enforcement. Thanks to his leg work, the culprit was arrested just one day later.
“He had a bunch of skimming equipment and things of that nature,” said Collins.
Carlos’ situation is unique. Normally, investigations take months.
The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service estimated a skimmer will steal about 100 people’s information before it’s discovered. Costing victims an average of $1,000.
Skimmers are designed to be discrete, making them hard to identify.
This surveillance video shows a skimmer being installed on a card reader in Miami Beach.
“They’re often pretty good at masking them and they’re always moving that better,” said State Attorney of the 2nd Judicial Circuit Jack Campbell.
New state laws took affect in July that help law enforcement catch scammers. Scammers now can be sentenced up to 15 years for offenses. Also possession of the devices is now illegal.
“It’s illicit in its own right which allows us to shut it down before people are compromised,” said Campbell.
Using cards with chips makes it harder for skimmers to steal your information. There are even cellphone apps in development which will detect Bluetooth signals the skimmers send out.
Credit card skimmers have been found in 42 counties in the state this year according to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

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