The hunt for credit card skimmers in Cape Coral

Your credit cards may be at risk; Cape Coral Police want to warn residents about the threat of credit card skimmers.

Detectives from the Cape Coral Police Department are being proactive to prevent credit card skimmers at “point-of-sale” terminals.

These skimmers are used by thieves and are designed to be placed over standard POS terminals and read your credit card information when placed on or near a skimming device.

ATMs, grocery stores, gas stations and anywhere you make a purchase could put you at risk.

Detectives went to 65 stores within Cape Coral to check for these devices. While at the stores, they also educated businesses on what to look out for and offered prevention tips to keep their equipment from being tampered with.

Fortunately, out of the 65 stores, none were found to have any skimmers on their systems.

Some of the businesses detectives visited already had prevention measures in place to keep their customers’ information safe, but it’s important to know what to look out for as an individual.

Skimming devices are not securely fixed to POS terminals but may appear to be a perfect fit; however, they usually come off with a gentle tug.

Mercedes Simonds, Cape Coral Police spokesperson, advises using tap-to-pay.

“This particular batch of skimmers is pretty safe with tap-to-pay,” said Simonds. “It picks up a lot of information from actual credit card insertion, but it doesn’t have the ability to consume information from tap-to-pay.”

The Cape Coral Police Department aims to get the information out so that residents can keep an eye out for anything that seems out of place.

If you find any, be sure to call Cape Coral police at 239-574-3223 so they can investigate further.