First there was dumpster diving, phishing, skimming and hacking. Now we have shaving to worry about. This one is unique in that it’s used against card present transactions. That means all you “Brick and Mortar” merchants need to be aware of this one. It’s coming to a store near you – or maybe it will be you!
It seems like a lot of work and a bit more risky for the bad guys but according to what I’m reading in the trade rags, shaving is catching on.
Card Shaving – What is it?
Step number one involves finding a useable card number. That’s just a matter of trying different combinations of 16 digit numbers on an on-line merchant until a valid credit card account is found. Those of us doing on-line selling know how easy that is. Once a valid number is found, the real fun begins.
The bad guys have a nice collection of expired cards with the raised numbers shaved off and saved. The numbers of the valid account are then carefully glued to one of the cards. Once that’s done, it’s a simple matter of destroying the magnetic stripe on the back to force the person at the register to manually enter the numbers.
It’s working
It may not be the cleanest way of passing a bad card, but apparently it’s working and catching on. When these counterfeit cards are passed in a busy checkout line with an uninformed clerk it can go unnoticed. So, as always, a little education goes a long way. Merchants need to make their clerks aware of this scam. It would certainly be easy enough to spot one of these seriously altered cards without a valid signature but apparently it’s working and the thieves are using it.
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- Dumpster diving, phishing, skimming, and now we have shimming
