MIAMI CBS 4 - It's a technique that lifts your bank information and transfers it into the hands of thieves. Authorities say the credit card skimming machines have been around for years, but are reemerging as the economy tumbles.
CBS4 I-Team (Florida) Producer Gio Benitez recently learned from his bank that someone swiped his account cashing in on his bank information. They grabbed the information from the magnetic stripe on the back of his credit card and snapped up hundreds of dollars.
"The bank called me immediately as soon as they saw these strange charges that racked up some $400," Benitez said. "They called me immediately and said, "We're suspending your credit card until we hear back from you." And I called them and they said, "Someone has duplicated your card."
CBS4 I-Team Investigator Stephen Stock asked a US Secret Service Agent about Benitez's experience.
"How would you know it even happened?" Stock asked. "You wouldn't know," replied Michael Fithen, Special Agent in Charge of the US Secret Service's Miami Field office. Fithen said credit card skimming arrests are up 31 percent in South Florida from 2007 to 2008.
"It's very typical for us to get a case that...might exceed hundreds of thousand dollars," Fithen told the I-Team. "And when you multiply that by the volume of cases we see here and it is no one's imagination that it exceeds hundreds of millions of dollars."
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