ATM & Kiosk

Skimming is the use of a device to capture data from payment cards without authority and it's a very common means of obtaining the data for payment card fraud. In parts of the world where the magnetic stripe is king, collecting that data is quick, cheap and easy. Enter the FBI for the USA is one of the largest markets where the chip and pin card remains a rarity.

Three people have been arrested, and cash, goods and items used in the commission of offences seized in Hong Kong as police investigate a rapid-fire ATM scam involving data written to mag stripe cards and used in just two ATMs over a two week period.

The California Attorney General’s Office today filed criminal charges against three men who are alleged to have stolen more than USD100,000 from about 200 people by creating fake credit and debit cards from banking information they skimmed from ATM and credit cards through devices placed inside petrol station pumps in Northern California.

It might seem a little odd to ATM users from other countries, but Australia's ATM networks don't have arrangements between banks to use each others' machines for free. That is changing for some smaller banks but it took an approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to make it happen.

Diverting the attention of, or distracting, an ATM user is a long established method of stealing money. But a recent incident in Paris is novel.

Diebold, Inc and three former executives have been charged with accounting fraud. The USA's Securities and Exchange Commission says that the company, which is one of world's leading suppliers of ATMs and other banking equipment plus the infamous USA election voting machines, adopted strategies to inflate its earnings. Diebold has agreed to pay USD25 million to settle the action.

The State Bank of India - government owned but not the central bank - has begun a nation-wide replacement of its ATM software using Opus Software Solutions.

It was shortly after 0500 this morning, as the Muslim residents of Malaysian town Shah Alam prepared for morning prayers that a loud explosion was heard, rattling windows and causing fear. But this was no terrorist attack....

All over the world, governments are encouraging the deployment of ATMs and Kiosks in areas with limited access to banking services. An indictment in a US court demonstrates a scheme to take advantage of this growing market.