Crime Stoppers uses stickers to fight fraud at city’s gas pumps
New stickers will protect against fraud at Calgary gas pumps as part of a joint initiative between the Canadian Crime Stoppers Association and local retailers including Petro-Canada and Circle K Stores.
The silver holographic anti-skimming decals will be placed on gas pumps across Calgary, bearing the Crime Stoppers logo, making it more difficult for fraudsters to compromise customers’ credit card security when paying at the pump.
Skimming, the practise of placing an electronic device at pay-point areas like gas pumps to steal credit card data, is a $1-billion problem across Canada, according to Sean Sportun, manager of security and loss prevention for Circle K Stores in Central Canada.
“With technology, fraudsters will advance their techniques,” said Sportun, representing the Canadian Crime Stoppers Association and the Canadian Convenience Stores Association at a press conference on Monday. “So, what we’re trying to do is just be proactive so that our customers feel safe when they use our pumps, as well as for our employees to make sure that when they’re coming out here to do their preventative maintenance checks, that it’s easy for them to spot something. Whereas before they would have to be a bit more vigilant, now it’s a little bit more easy for them to see something that’s out of place and react.”
Each pump should be adorned by two decals, one on the card reader and another near the PIN pad camera. If peeled off, the stickers are designed to break apart, making it difficult to reuse them without obvious signs of tampering.
If one or both stickers are missing, customers should check to see whether the card reader at the pump is secure by lightly pulling on it and ensuring the keypad area is flush with the console and never loose. The decals are being rolled out at gas stations across Canada in partnership with Crime Stoppers, having been introduced in Ontario late last year.
While Calgary Police say reports of skimming the past two years are low, they believe plenty more unreported offences are occurring. In October, police recovered skimming equipment from a gas pump in Calgary, however no arrests have yet been made in connection with the incident.
“Not a lot of people pay attention when they go to the gas pumps and take that extra look, especially when the days are cold such as today or the past recent weeks,” said Staff Sgt. Cory Dayley of the Calgary Police Cyber/Forensics unit. “We know very well that criminal organization target gas pumps, all point of sale types, to skim and recover people’s card and payment information.”