On 30th August 2012, as a result of the vigilance of a certain staff member of Stanbic bank at Nateete branch in Kampala, four Bulgarian nationals who had reportedly installed ATM skimming devices at the ATM machine were intercepted and handed them over to the police.
Stanbic bank has a processes and procedures to ensure that there is continuous monitoring of ATMs in order to protect customers and their money.
But the police spokesperson for Kampala, Ibin Senkumbi says that ATM fraud is a growing problem which the banks can not solve alone. Therefore the police have called upon bank clients and the general public to join police in fighting ATM fraud. In ATM skimming, criminals and thieves use hidden electronic devices e.g. cameras and card readers to steal personal information on ATM cards.
Police says that the first part of the skimmer is a card reader over the ATM’s real card slot. When a bank customer slides his or her card into the ATM, s/he is unknowingly sliding it through the counterfeit reader, which scans and stores all the information on the magnetic strip.
However to gain full access to a customer’s bank account on an ATM, the thieves still need your pin number. That is where cameras come in hidden on or near the ATM’s tiny spy cameras are positioned to get a clear view of the keyboard and record all the ATM’s pin action.
So customers are advised to always pay attention to objects mounted on the ATM or located close by a pinhole of off color piece of plastic could give away the camera’s hiding place. Cameras also could even be hidden in brochure racks.
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