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OT Gas pump skimmers

I work in Massachusetts and each town fire marshal decides if the residents are smart enough to pump their own gas. Many still have an attendant and the prices are no higher than DIY stations.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski
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I have not seen a full service gas station out in Nevada in memory.

Reply to
T

Because you have to go into a "convenience" store and wait in line for people buying lotto tickets.

Reply to
Neill Massello

It is scary to read his post. I've never had any problem but am careful. I never give my card to anyone to carry away like in a restaurant, use only one card and it has the chip.

At the gas station it takes longer to pay inside and wait for all the lottery and sandwich customers so I pay at the pump.

Reply to
Frank

I never understood pay at the pump. Sure, it is easy and fast. There is a station I use when I use the company CC and in over a decasde I;ve never been inside. If i was forced to go in and pay, perhaps I'd buy a soda or coffee adding to their income. they let me come and go. OK by me.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

The extra walk is good for me. My job is mostly sitting on my ass. Plus, I get to know some of the folks at the station and become friends.

I don't think using a credit card is worth all the ramifications of an identity theft (usually, they just steel money).

Reply to
T

How do you get your cash?

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Uhhh. From the teller at the credit union. I go once a week to deposit business checks etc.. If you can walk up to the instant teller at the bank, you can walk into the bank too. What am I missing here?

Using cash also makes think about and budget for what you buy. No surprises at the end of the month.

Reply to
T

At 67, I don't ever recall paying for gas with anything but cash.

No intention of changing that now.

I still pay cash for groceries, as well. Only used a card a couple of times (as I don't carry much cash, either!)

Reply to
John Albert

Using cash makes you think about what you buy and budget for it. No surprises at the end of the month.

Reply to
T

That's what I though you'd say (the walking into a bank part)

I'm still trying to figure out how going to a bank for cash and then going into the store at the gas station is more "convenient" than using a card at the pump.

Granted, I don't receive many checks, but when I do get one, I deposit it by taking a picture of it and using the app my bank provides.

I don't know what you're missing, but I'm missing the "walking" part. If I need cash I *drive*up to the ATM.

I'm not surprised because I keep track of my spending on my phone, my iPad, my computer, the ATM, etc. My bank balances are all instantly available.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

It is not. But there is more to it than that

Outstanding checks do not show. And if you use on line banking (I recommend against it), you are risking a really nasty identity theft. The banks won't secure their on line services enough, as it annoys the customer too much.

Reply to
T

My system, use only one credit card for everything I can. I get a daily e-mail showing the running balance. No debit card. A couple of clicks and I can see what's been charged to the card. Yes, I pay it off every month. Gasoline? I get the 100% gasoline since I don't drive much anymore and a tank in the pickup or car is apt to last 6 months and the lawnmower likes it. Pumping gas... that was one my first jobs, for two bucks a customer expected the windshield cleaned and maybe the oil checked and the air in the tires. Gas was around 30 cents a gallon back then.

Reply to
My 2 Cents

Gas station lines are the worst. Suzie Slo-pay is always in front of me, slowly digging in her purse for the exact change.

Reply to
Danny Jones

The majority of this is being done with small readers that are stuck onto the front of the reader built into the pump. So you can judge for yourself whether or not the pump has been altered. If in doubt, give a good yank on the card guide of the reader and see if it comes off and reveals the real cardguide and slot underneath.

If the crooks are actually picking the locks on the pumps, getting inside, and installing anything there, good luck with getting gas station employees to check the pumps. They're not going to know what's supposed to be there and what isn't, and they're not going to spend much time on it either. These are generally minimum-wage workers with a very high turnover, and the managers aren't any better.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find that gas station and C-store workers are involved with the skimming in some cases.

This skimming is being done on ATMs too from what I've been told.

I think it may be harder for the crooks once all retailers use chip readers instead of the magnetic stripe. The swiping action of a magnetic stripe reader means it's fairly easy to add on an additional set of sensors that pick up the data at the same time the card is being read by the legit sensors.

A chip reader requires that all the contacts line up so they can be read. I'm not sure you could do that and read the chip on-the-fly as the card is inserted and removed from the legit reader.

Reply to
Bud Frede

OK, then the conversation has shifted somewhat. I had originally responded to "mako" who said: "that's why I prefer the convenience of cash". I thought you were agreeing with him. If it's not about "convenience" then you and I are on the same page now.

I rarely write checks, *maybe* 4 - 6 a year, if that many. When I do, it's for big things like taxes, so knowing whether they've been cashed or not is pretty simple.

You are not wrong, but I'll take my chances.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

"DerbyDad03" wrote

| What deductions for a debit card? I have never been charged a deduction | when paying at the pump with a debit card.

You've been conditioned to accept an unnecessary middleman. We have cash as a means of exchange. Now we've developed almost universal middleman exchanges to handle the cash exchange. A new phase of that has started with various kinds of cellphone payment options. It's creating a massive, unncessary industry out of thin air. The merchant pays a fee for your debit card use, and we all pay for your ignorance as a result. Did you think the banks were going to all that trouble just to be nice? Did you think they push debit cards on you because they're desperate to handle money exchanges on your behalf without compensation? Debit cards are a massive scam. They're also don't offer the same fraud protection that credit cards do. (None at all on commercial accounts.) The only coherent argument for the use of debit cards is convenience. People don't like carrying cash. I think people have heard that argument so many times it makes sense to them, even though it really doesn't. I stop by the ATM occasionally for cash and use that for nearly everything. (It took 3 times to get TD Bank to give me an ATM-only card that can't be used for debit... I suspect other banks are probably worse.) I don't find those trips are exhausting or time-consuming. Finding it tedious to have to handle cash or actually relate to retail clerks may be the ultimate case of a "first world problem". :)

Reply to
Mayayana

"KenK" wrote

| I would think it would improve business for the stations - gas is gas - if | they advertised that they check the pumps for skimmers every day. I'd buy | there. No such ads though. Seeing any in your area? |

I don't think it's that simple. The skimmers can be very convincing. (After all, people using them are not suspicious.) Station attendants have no qualifications to assess whether the system is somehow being hacked.

If you want to use credit/debit that's a risk you take. It's also an extra expense. Fortunately, the credit-lobby laws forcing stations to offer the same price for cash or credit seem to be getting phased out. I've seen some stations with two prices. I'd like to see the credit card addicts pay for their own stupidity, rather than my having to subsidize it.

It's not just gas stations. There have been cases of dept stores, supermarkets and the like, too. There was one case -- I don't remember the company offhand -- where fake technicians came into the store and "updated" card readers at the checkouts. There's no IT staff standing around in that scenario. Just clerks and managers who know nothing about the hardware.

There have been famous cases like Home Depot and Target.

It's all surely going to get a lot worse. We're computerizing aspects of life far more than we need to. How long will it be before your computerized frig is hacked and your account drained? Yet people will say, "There's no other option! What, I'm going to go to a store to buy food?!"

Reply to
Mayayana

get hit with overdraft charges because if they only had $50 in the bank to start with, they were screwed until they made their next deposit. The security people at my bank did contact me when someone in another country tried to use my debit card number to make a purchase. I had bought gas at a convenience store owned by Pakistanis so you can guess which country the fraudulent purchase was attempted from. _(?)_/¯

If you just use the credit card you do not have to worry about the bank holding onto your money.

Inever did understand the use of a debit card or what good it is. It may be that the bank does not charge the store owners a couple of percent like they do the credit cards.

I never use a debit card, but buy most everything on a credit card. Mainly to get about an average of 2 % back on everything I buy.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

You missed my point. I am not "ignorant" of the fact that debit cards have cost associated with them, either directly or "in the background". I am willing to pay for that, just like I am will to pay for a data plan on a smartphone.

Do I *need* 24 x 7 internet access? Of course not, but I like the convenience of it so I pay for it. Do I need to avoid getting cash at a bank/ATM or waiting on line at a gas station to pay cash? Of course not, but I like the convenience of using a debit card so I pay for it, but almost always indirectly - and that was the point of my response related to "deductions".

You snipped out the paragraph that I responded to, specifically:

Note the words "deductions if you use a debit card". I took that to mean a deduction/fee for using a debit card, like some ATM's and possibly some merchants/banks charge directly against my account.

When I said "I have never been charged a deduction when paying at the pump with a debit card" I meant that I never see a specific fee associated with the transaction.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

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