’Tis season for credit card fraud

’Tis the season to be vigilant.

Online shoppers and credit card holders should be extra careful when making purchases using their credit cards as syndicates involved in electronic fraud have become more active with the onset of the holiday season, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) warned Sunday.

Police Senior Supt. Benjamin Acorda, chief of the CIDG’s Anti-Fraud and Commercial Crime Division, said groups behind credit card fraud, which are on the watch list of the CIDG and the Credit Card Association of the Philippines, had intensified their operations in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

Acorda said these groups had been using skimming devices to access credit cards, produce copies and use these to make purchases.

“These devices, which they have distributed to unscrupulous cashiers in malls, gasoline stations and supermarkets, are capable of stealing account information of unsuspecting credit card owners, which are then used to clone credit cards,” he said in a statement.

He said the syndicates have also installed skimming access devices in some automated teller machines.

To avoid falling victim to “electronic swindlers,” Acorda said credit card users should be careful when giving their cards to cashiers and keep an eye on how the cashiers swipe their cards.

“A skimming access device is small and handy that some unsuspecting victims barely notice that [it was used to access] their card,” he said. Marlon Ramos