The problem of credit card skimming is now the cause for international losses of over one billion dollars a year. This common type of credit card scam is happening in Europe, Asia and Latin America and is starting to be more often encountered in the United States.

This credit card scam is easy to run, as it can take place when you give your credit card to a store employee to purchase something. When the store employee swipes your card for the purchase, it could also be swiped across a small machine in their hand called a skimmer which stores the information on your card into its own system for the store employee to use to steal from you. This skimmer is equipped to hold information on virtually hundreds of credit cards, and from this information the crooks are able to produce counterfeit credit or debit cards.

The skimmer is capable of gathering the information on hundreds of cards; then information is downloaded into a computer to be emailed to skimming rings that are at work worldwide. The skimmers of the past were huge machines that had to be hidden under the counter and this made it harder to accomplish this type of theft.

Some of the technological advances of the past few years has made it a possibility for these skimming machines to be hand-held and thus, invisible to the unsuspecting customer. It is very unfortunate that these skimmers are actually available to be purchased over the internet for around three hundred dollars, however the machine which produces the counterfeit cards costs anywhere from five thousand to ten thousand dollars.

Another form of skimming is done by placing a skimmer bug directly into the credit card terminals and then retrieving it later with credit card information on it. The older terminals are the only ones which can be violated in this way, and the onset of new credit card terminals has alleviated much of this bugging.

As soon as the credit card skimmers have confiscated all of the information they need from your card, they will begin to make purchases of their choice with your credit card number. Over half of credit card fraud is committed over the internet, with shopping by this method becoming more and more popular, card fraud on the internet has also increased. The information skimming thieves will check the credit card information for it’s validity is by making several purchases of low cost items on internet websites to find out if the cards are active.

The cardholder is most times just held responsible for up to fifty dollars of the total amount charged on the card, but the real victim in this crime is the merchant who had the employee who did the skimming. The merchant is responsible for payment of the fees for the investigation of the fraud which has taken place and he also is held one hundred percent responsible for the skimming activity and risks the loss of the merchandise. The costs of investigating the charge-back claims of their customers is paid by the investigation fees paid by consumers and businesses who use the credit card companies.

Before beginning a criminal investigation into the skimming activity the ones who perform this scam know that a purchase must be made of at least two thousand dollars.

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