Foiling Pump Skimmers With GPS
Credit and debit card skimmers secretly attached to gas pumps are an increasingly common scourge throughout the United States. But the tables can be turned when these fraud devices are discovered, as evidenced by one California police department that has eschewed costly and time-consuming stakeouts in favor of affixing GPS tracking devices to the skimmers and then waiting for thieves to come collect their bounty.
One morning last year the Redlands, Calif. police department received a call about a skimming device that was found attached to a local gas pump. This wasn’t the first call of the day about such a discovery, but Redlands police didn’t exactly have time to stake out the compromised pumps. Instead, they attached a specially-made GPS tracking device to the pump skimmer.
