New Jersey has seen a rash of card “skimming” attacks recently where fraudsters place devices on ATMs, credit and debit card readers and “skim” your credit or debit card information to defraud you.
Yesterday, the Aldi supermarket chain announced skimming devices were found at check-out terminals in its stores in Roselle and Union, NJ. The skimming devices have been in place for many months, but they were just recently discovered by Aldi, meaning customer card data was exposed for a very long time. Wawa also recently announced similar “skimming” breaches at many of its locations
These skimming devices are just one more potential fraud that consumers must protect against as criminals get bolder and bolder trying to steal your data.
Fortunately, there is one powerful tool that credit union members can use to protect themselves against the “skimming” fraud. Your Merck Employees Credit Union Visa Credit and Debit cards can be added to ApplePay, SamsungPay or GooglePay, which utilize tokenization to protect your data at checkout. Unlike debit and credit cards, which use the 16-digit number on the card for every transaction, digital wallets use a different randomly assigned number for each transaction. This allows you to skip the card reader where a skimming device could be lurking and use your mobile device for convenient and safe payments.
Digital wallet payments have become more universally accepted, making the Digital Wallet a powerful tool to combat fraud. As an example, both Aldi and Wawa accept Digital Wallet payments.
More and more credit union members are utilizing Digital Wallet capabilities from the credit union. If you need more information, please call 732-594-2620 or 732-594-7688.
