Wisconsin state officials have warned gas station customers recently to be careful of suspicious activity on credit cards. That’s due to card skimmers hidden in gas pumps popping up all over the state.
That doesn’t appear to be the case in Illinois so far.
The closest incident has been proxy readers that are set up at nearby pumps. That’s according to DeKalb police commander Jason Leverton.
“We’ve had that happen a few times; we did intervene with kind of a ring of people that were involved in that kind of crime maybe about a year or so ago," Leverton said. "So that’s something that comes up once in a while.”
Leverton says there’s no way to know there’s malicious equipment in gas pumps until identity thieves start using other credit card numbers. If that’s the case, then that pump becomes a crime scene and is out of service.
Leverton says card holders could protect themselves by making transactions with gas attendants present. He says carrying a blend of cash and cards also could help.