Credit card fraud has become the easiest thing in the world, with conmen now buying card cloning devices at the click of a button on e-commerce websites, before going on to cheat unwitting customers of thousands
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Credit card fraud has become the easiest thing in the world, with conmen now buying card cloning devices at the click of a button on e-commerce websites, before going on to cheat unwitting customers of thousands.
About a week ago, mid-day had reported how restaurant waiters used cloning devices to steal information from the magnetic strip of customers' cards. The police have arrested six waiters and seized eight skimming devices from them. These devices were later learnt to have been purchased online with a small connecting wire to transfer the data to a laptop and then to a dummy card which was used to withdraw cash at ATMs.
The devices are small — 4-5 inches long and 2-3 inches wide — which made it easy for the waiters to hide them in their uniform jackets or trouser pockets. "The waiters, while on the job, took the cards of customers and first swiped them in the skimming devices, and then swiped them in the restaurant's pay machines," said a police officer.
The waiters were paid Rs 1,000 for every card that they helped to clone, said sources. The accused are involved in 25 cases across Mumbai, Thane and Pune. The police have recovered 1,028 victims' card data from the register. The cards belong to different private banks. "We have written to the banks to identify the victims and have got reply from a few banks," said an officer.
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