How To Spot Card Skimmers, And Avoid Becoming The Next Victim

With more and more reports coming in from police that illegal card skimmers are being placed on local ATMs and card reading devices, we thought it would be a good idea to refresh your memory about what you should be looking for to protect yourself from becoming the next victim.

Card skimmers are small devices that affix to a card reader, allowing a thief to illegally collect the credit and debit card information of unsuspecting customers. Most commonly, card skimmers are put on ATMs, gas station pumps or self-checkout machines.

The typical ATM skimmer is smaller than a deck of cards and fits over an existing card reader, says PC Mag.

What should you look out for so that you can avoid having your financial information stolen from a skimmer? If you see obvious signs of tampering, or the machine looks suspicious or different than normal, don't use it, experts say.

"One giveaway that you might be at risk is if a terminal looks especially wide — since any overlay skimmer piece will inevitably take up extra space," says Mic.com.

If the keypad backlight is off, that's another warning sign that a skimming device could be installed, the Mic.com article says.

Also, if the chip reader is deeper than normal, beware.

A rule of thumb (no pun intended): if your card goes so deep into a chip reader that you can't keep a thumb on it, that's a sign there could be a skimmer installed.

Here are some images of what a card skimmer looks like on an ATM.

Here is some information on how to avoid skimmers at a gas pump:

PHOTO: Morguefile