Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Legal Blog Watch

Legal News

: Legal Blog Watch

LBW Alert: Watch Out for Fake ATM Machines

By Bruce Carton

To the ever-growing list of clever ways that crooks are trying to rip you off, add this one: the fake ATM machine. Consumerist reported last week that in Beijing, China, thieves bought a normal ATM machine and somehow "installed it on a busy Beijing street." They then used information taken from the users/victims' debit cards to steal all the money from their accounts. And don't think you are safe just because you are living in the U.S., and not in China. In a follow-up post yesterday, a Consumerist reader named Paul told his story of almost being burned by a fake ATM machine at an outdoor city festival in his hometown in the U.S. Paul says that someone created a fake ATM by somehow taking an arcade cabinet and adding "a TV screen and number pad lifted from another ATM machine and a real (definitely not fake) card reader installed very well next to the screen." The fake ATM was set up outside a jam-packed bank near the festival and captured the overflow customers. Paul discussed the matter with the FBI, who told him that the fake ATM actually had a real cash dispenser and actually gave out real cash,...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on June 30, 2010 (boomark / email).