The first address I recognized is the Shell station just down the street from my Grandfather's house. It's not a very nice neighborhood anymore (a planned freeway just to the south was canceled back in the 1980's, and all the houses that had been taken by eminent domain were auctioned off. The new tenants didn't take care of their neighborhoods like the owners used to).
Some of the stations are in rather well-to-do areas. 4995 N Granite Reef Rd in Scottsdale is a Shell station too, and is pretty close to downtown Scottsdale. Lots of Circle K's - most of these stores are corporate, but a few are franchises.
I usually paid cash for my gas, and I haven't been skimmed. I brought up 'skimming' at my credit union the other day, when I deposited to savings rather than checking, and the teller said it's a problem for them in the Phoenix area.
Edit: Looking into it more, these aren't little Mom-And-Pop gas stations, they're mostly Circle K's (corporate) and franchises of big-name energy companies - lots of Shell and Valero franchises.
... a planned freeway just to the south was canceled back
in the 1980's, and all the houses that had been taken by
eminent domain were auctioned off. The new tenants
didn't take care of their neighborhoods like the owners
used to.
This blows my mind. So the local government forced people out of their homes, then said, "Nevermind!"?
The freeway was also going to take out a private high school, which has many influential members of the community as alumni. It was not even a necessary freeway - parallel to I-10, but only a few miles to the north.
I might be wrong about the details (I was a kid at the time), but this page confirms that a freeway in this general area was canceled 'due to neighborhood opposition':
https://www.arizonaroads.com/arizona/az50.html
Family friend in CT was just telling me about this. He works for the Dept. of Weights and Transfers. Said they usually make sure that pumps give you exactly the amount you pay for, but lately they've been working with the Secret Service and finding even the insides of pump machines compromised.
Recommends preferring paying in cash, then credit, lastly debit and if you do so, move your money out of that account and into a savings account.
This is a mostly solved problem in the most of the world. (but only mostly).
lock the cabinet, have cameras, have a non-flat shaped card reader slot (preferably with a picture of what it should look like stuck next to the reader), have a sealed emv/pci compliant reader/pin pad component, schedule regular checks of the equipment, remote alarm the pump enclosure.
and finally have credit card companies or head office tear shit out of the site if they don't have these.
Or just don't accept swipe-only cards at pumps(or any machines where there is no human). But that's not going to happen until every person in US upgraded their card to chip-and-pin.
I don't know how much this would help by itself. People installing skimmers can just install something that looks like a swiper even though the transaction would never complete. I think most if not all cards in the US with a chip can still be used online, so swiping it at all still gets you enough to use the card.
Unless the legislature forces this, I doubt it will happen. The banks and credit cards have turned these exploits into a problem of the individual instead of a problem of the institution (which has shit security). So you and I get stuck with the fraud and they get paid, typically.
I've been the victim of a couple forms of fraud (fraudulent charges in TX, Macy's CC opened in my wife's name) and the CC companies bent over backwards to accommodate us. No hesitation that the charges would be reversed, holds placed on the account, and new cards sent.
That and fraud detection is getting better. I went home to visit my parents (2 hours away), got gas, then exchanged USD for €300. That triggered their algorithms (as well it should have), and I got a text about 10s after I swiped my card.
Why don't the operators add a daily check for skimmers while they do their daily pump checks? And with video so affordable now, even if it's only on a 7-day retention, they can turn over evidence to authorities to catch the perps?
Maybe GasBuddy or the like can begin identifying stations which have experienced compromises (and are complacent) as well as ones which maintain some operational security or at least actively seek to fight the skimmers.
I would certainly give preference to stations with better scores, in that regard, even if there were a modest price premium.
Will skimmers be rendered obsolete by chip cards? It seems like this will all be over when the last magnetic strip reader is shut down. Although I've never seen a chip reader at a gas station, so it may be a while.
It is impossible (yet) to hack chip & pin. The problem is that even chip cards have a magstripe that can be skimmed. EMV[1] enabled fallback funtionality by default, which is the biggest issue imho. Basically, if your chip is broken, a terminal goes through fallback mechanism and uses magstripe instead. This way you can clone a card with "broken" chip and copied magstripe. Some banks allow to disable (opt-out) magstripe for chip cards, so unless you are in US, you should do that. I've seen some people intentionally scratched magstripe, but I'm not sure it's a very good idea.
Sure you could. But I'd like to have a backup options in case I end up in strange place that doesn't accept chip&pin or my chip is really broken while on travel. It could be opt-in, so in case I need magnet, I could call my bank and ask to enable it.
There have been incidents where in-store attendants have been caught skimming cards with handheld skimmers I would be surprised if done of these gas station attendants are not in league with the criminals or even install some of these devices on their behalf.
Some of the stations are in rather well-to-do areas. 4995 N Granite Reef Rd in Scottsdale is a Shell station too, and is pretty close to downtown Scottsdale. Lots of Circle K's - most of these stores are corporate, but a few are franchises.
I usually paid cash for my gas, and I haven't been skimmed. I brought up 'skimming' at my credit union the other day, when I deposited to savings rather than checking, and the teller said it's a problem for them in the Phoenix area.
Edit: Looking into it more, these aren't little Mom-And-Pop gas stations, they're mostly Circle K's (corporate) and franchises of big-name energy companies - lots of Shell and Valero franchises.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valero_Energy - for example: https://www.google.com/maps/place/1925+N+Scottsdale+Rd,+Temp...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Oil_Company - for example: https://www.google.com/maps/place/4995+N+Granite+Reef+Rd,+Sc...
Edit 2: Mile Marker 27 (Last Stop) is a Texaco: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Texaco/@35.7114132,-114.51...