Chargebacks911 Founder Monica Eaton was recently asked to share her opinion about a slate of card-skimming cases as part of a recent interview for Fox26 Houston.
Fox26 Houston, or KRIV, is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, airing programming from the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV outlet KTXH.
In the Houston metropolitan area, card skimming cases are on the rise. Estimates project that cases were up 700% in the last year. This extraordinary figure is tied to skimming devices found at several gas pumps in the Houston metropolitan area, with 5 of these being discovered at a single Exxon station.
“Skimming is a type of fraud where the mag stripe on the back of a card is essentially duplicated and is used to steal money from that card,” explains Monica. “This is one of the reasons why every card today has a chip. You want to make sure that you’re using that chip because the magstripe is where fraud can happen.”
To combat fraud at the pump, Monica urges merchants to become fully EMV compliant without delay. She also wants consumers to take more responsibility at the pump by refusing to refuel at pumps that lack a chip reader. “Remember, merchants that lose money to frequent acts f fraud are going to pass those costs on to the consumer.”
Check out the full clip below:
