By all accounts, the most common fraud occurring at gas stations is “skimming operations.” A skimming operations is when identity thieves install a small electronic device (“skimmer”) on or in a gas station’s fuel pump. Once installed, this device will secretly capture and store your debit/credit card information, PIN, and any other data that is stored on your card’s magnetic strip.

What makes these operations so scary is how easy they are to perpetrate. For starters, skimmers are inexpensive and readily available for purchase to anyone online. The technology is basically as old as the magnetic strip, which means that thieves have had plenty of time to learn how to masterfully manipulate this equipment. With such little cost to get one of these operations started, it’s no wonder that they are rampant across Florida and all over the country.

Skimmers will usually operate without detection. That’s mostly because gas stations are either ill equipped to discover them, or worse, may be working with the thieves! Once a skimmer is installed, the thieves can simply come back to the compromised pump periodically, swap out the full skimmer with an empty one, and download dozens if not hundreds of stolen cards’ data onto their computers. From there, they can manufacture fake credit cards; make fraudulent purchases online; or sell your information on the black market.

With how dependent we all are on gas stations to fuel our vehicles, it’s no wonder that so many unsuspecting consumers are victimized. You may not even know that your card information was taken for days, weeks, or months. You might only get a call from your banking institution to discuss “suspicious” transactions. By then, though, it’s usually too late. Even if your bank reimburses you the money, which can take months as they “investigate,” you might have a negative report on your credit, be concerned about future issues, or be charged fees to issue new cards or create new accounts.