The segment opens with a report that the U.S. Justice Department has charged 11 individuals across the U.S., China, and three other countries for stealing more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from major retailers such as TJ Maxx, BJ's, Office Max, and others. Viewers are urged to contact affected stores and their card issuers if they suspect they were victims. The focus then shifts to a growing threat at gas stations: criminals are installing electronic skimming devices on pay‑at‑the‑pump machines. Robert Siciliano, CEO of ID Theft Security, explains that these devices mimic the pump’s card slot, capture magnetic‑stripe data, are later removed, and the data is downloaded to computers to create cloned cards for fraudulent purchases. He warns that the technology is increasingly available online and will continue to expand. Siciliano offers practical tips for consumers to spot skimmers—looking for visual anomalies such as mismatched devices, exposed wires, tape, or a crooked installation. The segment concludes with a cautionary note about the escalating risk.
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Anyway, hackers steal more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers before the government can bust them. Was your card one of them? Well, the Fed's just breaking out the biggest identity theft case of all time. More than 40 million credit and debit card numbers stolen from major US retailers. Fox Business Network's Peter Barnes all over it. Hey, Peter.
Hey, Neil. Well, the Justice Department announcing today it has charged 11 people in the US, China, and 3 other countries with stealing more than 40 million customer credit cards and debit card numbers, uh, and, uh, resulting in losses of potentially tens of millions of dollars to consumers. Let's take a look at the list of the stores that were hit in this hacking scam: TJ Maxx, BJ's Wholesale Club, Office Max, Boston Market, Barnes Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21, DSW. Now that some of these stores were hit by computer hackers is old news. In fact, what is new here is that these investigations finally led to the filing of charges and the arrests of some of these perpetrators. Some of these investigations, in fact, going back for several years. And if you shopped at any of these stores and think that you might have been victimized in this identity theft scam, you should contact the stores or— and your credit card company and report it. Neal, back to you.
All right, Peter, thank you very, very much. Peter Barnes. Taking a look at a couple of other developments today, what to What do you make of the Mitt Romney phenomenon, and is there something going on here? We're gonna explore that, but if you're using plastic at the pump, be aware of this: you could be getting hosed there. Scammers now installing electronic devices at gas stations to steal all your credit card information. Robert Siciliano knows all about it. He's the CEO of ID Theft Security. How big a deal is this right now, Robert?
Well, it's a problem that continues to grow as the technology is made available to these criminal hackers, and they understand how to apply them to the face of the pay-at-the-pump machines, and they're being sold online, it's going to continue to grow.
All right, so how do they do it? What do they do?
They literally recreate the look and feel of the face of that pay-at-the-pump. They literally affix to the face of that pump a device that goes right over where you slide your credit card in, and it actually recovers or copies the information off of the magnetic strip on your credit card. Then later on, they come, they take that device off the machine, and they download that information into a computer. Computer and they burn that onto white cards and they go into retail stores and they make purchases.
Man, oh man. How would you know when you go to a gas station if this device is there? Is there anything that we would be able to detect that just seems weird?
Well, you really have to pay close attention to what you're sliding your card into. Look at the machines around you. If it's the exact same Pay at the Pump device, if there's no differences than the other machines, then you're probably going to be okay. If you see something drastically different, there's a red flag of some sorts, wires sticking out, bruise, two-sided tapes, the device is cockeyed, whatever the case may be, that could be a red flag saying that there might be a skimming device on the face of the pay-at-the-pump.
All right, that's weird. I hope it's not gonna get out of control. Robert, thank you very much.
