Credit card skimmer discovered by inspectors at Albany gas station

ALBANY — Inspectors from the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s office of Fuel and Measures discovered a credit card skimmer inside a locked gas pump at the Citgo station on Newton Road, according to officials.

Pump No. 3 at the 5736 Newton Road Citgo location was immediately locked down and the authorities called in.

“During a routine inspection Monday, a credit card skimmer was discovered inside the machine,” said Lt. Steve Mitchum of the Dougherty County Police Department. “Inspectors locked the machine down and called us. The device was attached to the pump in such a way that when you put your card in, your information flows through this device first before activating the pump. We have found credit card skimmers before, but never inside a locked pump.”

The Fuel and Measures Division is a branch of the Georgia Department of Agriculture that is tasked with protecting consumers from exactly this type of illegal activity by verifying the quality and quantity of motor fuels and field operations, including testing accuracy and certification of retail gas pumps as well as propane dispensers and wholesale petroleum meters through routine regulatory inspections. It is through these regular inspections that problems are detected.

According to Rich Lewis, division director of the Fuel and Measures Office, credit card skimming has been a problem for some time, but the devices are usually attached to the outside of a machine.

“These criminals are becoming more sophisticated,” said Lewis. “They now come in and open the cabinets up. These pumps have a universal key, and if they can get one of those keys, they can open a lot of different pumps. Not all pumps, but a lot of them. If there is not any sort of alarm system on the dispenser, it can be very easy to open it up.”

Lewis said if the criminal is knowledgeable, then it also takes very little time to attach the device once the cabinet is open.

“If they really know what they are doing, they can put the skimmer on in two or three seconds,” said Lewis. “They then close it back up, and most of the devices we find are bluetooth capable, which means the information skimmed, your credit card information, can be collected from a remote location. You cannot see these devices from the outside, and in many cases you would never know it was there or that anything had happened until you notice some unusual activity with your account.”

According to Lewis, inspectors check for skimmers every time a pump is inspected. They have discovered about 10 in Georgia over the last year.

“We check for them routinely,” said Lewis. “In the last year, we have found about 10. It could be a little more, but about 10 that I know of have been discovered.”

The consumer’s information skimmed also takes only seconds to get, said Lewis.

“From what we have been told, and we have received some training on this, if there is one of these devices in there and you use your credit card, before you finish pumping your gas, they have your information, which has been sent on to some central location,” he said. “It could be anywhere.

“The issue of credit card skimming had become such a problem that two years ago we started this effort with the Georgia Convenient Store Association. We work with them to check for these devices. When we find one, we have the station manager contact the authorities. We shut the pump down until the police get there. They remove the device, and in most cases they turn it over to the secret service, who investigates the matter. The U.S. Secret Service is the agency on point with this issue.”

Officials are advising anyone who may have purchased fuel at the Newton Road station to check their accounts for any suspicious activity. Other ways to avoid becoming a victim of skimming is to pay inside a gas station or use cash.

“We don’t have any suspects at this time, but we are investigating,” said Mitchum. “There have actually been two other skimmers like this found in Cuthbert and Adel. We will be looking into who services these pumps and exploring some other avenues.

“The problem is that these criminals obviously have one of the keys, so they could really put them anywhere. We are telling people that if you have to pay at the pump, try to use one that is close to the building, facing the building, because these would be harder to install a skimmer without being seen.”