Gas Pump Skimmers Are Becoming a Nuisance across North America

[buzzbomb]

You're free to use credit, just as other people are free to use cash.

Just as businesses are free to accept all forms of payment they wish...it's not like THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT took your cash, right? What if they start refusing cash but accepting BTC/ETH instead? Or they are willing to barter with you, two goats for a tank of fuel?

If you get ride of cash, you are forcing everyone to use credit, even if they don't want to.

While I think the death of cash is inevitable, no one is forcing anyone to not accept cash at this time. And you know the difference between "credit" and "debit" right?

Just wait until the power is down and you can't use your credit card for something you need. You'll wish you had a few bills in your wallet.

This is a better advertisement for a more resilient power grid than cash over credit/debit. If you have to wait for a SHTF situation to prove you are right, you're going to be waiting a long time.

 

[Jagger100]

Why find another pump? Gas stations still accept cash, last I checked.

Michigan used the price spike in 2005-ish to require pay first. If you like to top off the tank, that's a pain in the ass. If you use a card, you swipe, pump, then get charged.

 

[michalrz]

Guys we use chip and they had no problems skimming those too. They just added a sort of 'digitizer' or a small camera to capture the PIN as it was being entered.
This even happened in my relatively small town.

Hell, the latest play is using an EM spectrum analyzer to record electronic car key signals and then they simply replay them, open the car, grab stuff and go.
Also, blowing up ATMs has become a thing.

Safest bet is just to monitor your transactions and have the bank/card issuer's number at hand. Whenever I suspect something's up with my ATM session, or the machine steals my money, I make sure not to leave the area the camera's seeing and I make the call immediately. They verify you're there and it's pretty quick to reverse a fraudulent charge.

 

[phalanx]

Just wait until the power is down and you can't use your credit card for something you need. You'll wish you had a few bills in your wallet.

You can still do this:

 

[PaulP]

You can still do this:

Ha! I can remember using those in 70's when I worked at Radio Shack. Also hand wrote out the customer receipt in those days and had to figure out tax and change without a POS system or cash register (just a cash drawer). Yeah, those were the good old days...sure glad they are gone!

 

[tazeat]

Most of the larger gas station organizations are doing tamper seals (along with audit log, retag processes, etc), encrypted readers (data between physical reader and off site validation servers stays encrypted before it ever hits the first wire in the machine) and lots of things to combat this. Smaller mom & pops, probably not.

Surprised to see so little in the way of EMV too, we were testing them for the pumps intended for Canada years ago...