LifeLock Blog

Albert Jose Gonzalez, 39, of Lancaster, Josue Gustavo Albizuras, 42, of Los Angeles, and Cesar Vasquez Echeverria, 28, of Santa Clarita were all arrested after a three year investigation by the L.A. County Sheriff’s and the FBI. They all face several counts of conspiracy, identity theft, grand theft and computer access fraud. If they are convicted on all counts they could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison each.

The three were caught in a very sophisticated scheme that involved placing card skimmers on gas station pumps. The card skimming device is usually place over the existing card reader built into the pump and will record your cards information into its internal memory. The criminals would them show back up to download the information from the skimmers. The people using the pumps would be none the wiser and the criminals would be free to place charges on their credit and debit cards.

At the time of the arrest the police recovered 10,000 credit and debit card numbers from the accused. They also confiscated computers, cellphones, digital storage devices, and equipment they used to make fake credit and debit cards. $40,000 in cash and high end vehicles including a new Porsche and a Ferrari were also recovered. The criminals stole an estimated $2 million from their victims.

This is just another example on how careful you need to be when using your credit and debit cards. You should always inspect the card reader to make sure nothing is placed over it. Also make sure the card reader doesn’t wobble or move when you push on it. If it does you should just go to a different gas station just to be sure. Scams like this are happening all over the country and you don’t want to be a victim so be smart and know what to look for.

On a good day I can shower and get ready for work in just about an hour. On the rare occasion that I enjoy a single hour without interruption, I can research and write a rough draft for a short blog post.

In that same amount of time, two men broke into lockers at a Colorado recreation center, used a skimmer to copy account information off credit cards in the lockers, manufactured new cards using that information, and ran up $13,000 in fraudulent purchases.

Video cameras at the Wheat Ridge Recreation Center recorded one of the suspects entering the men’s locker room, while another man appears to be talking on a cell phone while he loiters in the hallway just outside the door.

An hour later, the thieves had added $7,000 to one credit card account, and $6,000 to another man’s credit card account.

Skimmers are small electronic devices that record the account information contained on the magnetic strips of credit and bankcards. Some skimmers are roughly the size of a matchbox and can be purchased for less than $200 from the Internet.

In identity theft cases where credit cards are stolen, the crimes are usually detected as soon as the victims realize their cards are missing. But, when the information from a card is copied with a skimmer, the victims continue to carry the cards themselves in their wallets, feeling blissfully secure … until the next time they attempt to use them and the cards are denied.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about the tools and strategies they employ to protect their nearly 1.5 million customers. Enroll using the LifeLock promo code Defense for a deep discount on service.