Payment Card & ATM Fraud

Criminals attach hidden reading devices and cameras to cash machines to copy your card data and PIN, then drain your account with a cloned card.

A paper-thin device hidden inside a card reader records your chip card's data during a normal transaction, leaving no visible sign of tampering.

Criminals hide card-reading devices inside fuel pumps, silently copying card data from every pay-at-pump customer, often for weeks before anyone notices.

Malicious code hidden in a genuine online store's checkout silently copies your card details as you type them, even though your order goes through normally.

Criminals copy stolen card data onto counterfeit cards and spend or withdraw cash as you, while your real card never leaves your wallet.

After phishing your card number, scammers pose as your bank's fraud team and get you to read back a one-time code — but that code enrols your card in a digital wallet on their own phone, letting them tap-to-pay with your money.

A thin sleeve or loop hidden in the card slot physically traps your card inside the ATM so it appears swallowed. A 'helpful' stranger watches you re-enter your PIN, then retrieves the card once you leave.

A device fitted over a cash machine's dispenser traps your banknotes as they are paid out. You see no cash, assume the withdrawal failed, and leave — then the scammer returns to remove the trap and take the money, while your account is still debited.

Criminals relay your card's contactless signal in real time to a mule standing at a payment terminal somewhere else in the world, letting them tap to pay with your card while it never leaves your pocket.

Fraudsters with lists of stolen card numbers run floods of tiny charges through online checkouts to find which cards still work, then sell or spend the live ones. Cardholders see small mystery charges; merchants absorb the flood.

Criminals hide skimmers on checkout terminals and ATMs to copy the magnetic stripe and PIN from EBT and benefit cards, clone them onto blank cards, and drain food or cash benefits — often within hours of the funds loading.

A payment terminal at a shop, restaurant, or fuel station is overlaid, tampered with, or swapped for a look-alike that captures your card data and PIN. Sometimes a dishonest employee runs your card through a second, hidden skimming device out of sight.

A scammer posing as support staff or a merchant walks the victim through a 'refund' that actually pushes money out — via remote access, a manipulated banking screen, or a card terminal run as a payment — or claims an over-refund and demands the 'excess' back by gift cards or transfer.

At foreign card terminals and ATMs, the offer to 'pay in your home currency' applies a hidden markup of several percent over the real exchange rate — and machines, merchants, and interface design often push or silently make that choice for you.

Pay-at-pump terminals place holds far larger than the fuel bought, sometimes freezing hundreds against a card for days — and some stations pair opaque holds with rigged pumps, unreset meters, or attendant sleight-of-card to overcharge drivers outright.