Criminals turn to 'card-trapping' at ATM machines to get cash

October 20, 2011

Criminals are embracing methods to trap debit and credit cards in ATMs for retrieval later, a move believed to be motivated by better security measures designed to ensure card details are not copied at the machines, according to an industry group.

Cards can be trapped in ATMs in several ways. One method is to put a device on the machine that uses tape, wire or thread in order to hold a card in. Criminals can then retrieve cards using tweezers. The PIN can be obtained through observation or by putting an overlay device on the keypad that can record PINs. Read more