Bank of America alarmed for using glue to steal money at ATM: If you go to withdraw money, if you see this sign, stop immediately!

Money “flying without wings”

Automated teller machines (ATMs) offer great convenience, but they are also a constant target for thieves. Recently, experts have warned about a new form of theft, taking place when users use the “touch” function on the card.

Specifically, the thief took advantage of this “touch” feature, combined with some common glue to steal the victim’s money.

Pamela Bongiorno, a customer of Chase Bank (in New York, USA) said that she became a victim when withdrawing money at this bank’s ATM.

“I used the ATM on the right. My husband was also there, and there was another man standing right behind him. I put my card in the machine, it didn’t work,” Bongiorno said.

Then the man (mentioned above) offered advice: ” Oh, if your card has a chip on it, you can use taping “.

Obediently, Bongiorno touched his card to the reader, this time the card worked properly. She took the money, thanked the stranger and left.

However, the next morning, when Bongiorno checked his account again, something scary happened. Her account recorded 3 more withdrawal transactions, with a total amount of up to 940 USD (about more than 22 million VND).

The same thing happened to Rob Bell at the same ATM. When the card reader didn’t work, someone came up to him and said: ” There seems to be a problem with the card slot, you must use the touch feature “.

Making sense, Bell touched the card, took the cash and left, only to discover his account had been drained. 560 USD (equivalent to more than 13 million VND) was “flying without wings”.

Justin Sindelar, another victim of this money-stealing scam, also discovered his account had up to 5 more consecutive withdrawals. 960 USD (nearly 23 million VND) has completely disappeared.

After reporting to the police, the victims were told that the thieves had done their trick with glue. They apply glue to the ATM’s card reader, making it impossible for the victim to use the card in the usual way to withdraw money. That causes them to switch to using the “touch” feature.

Notably, with Chase Bank accounts, after making a tap and conducting a withdrawal transaction, customers need to log out of the account. Otherwise, their account will remain open for a certain period of time, allowing for some more transactions. Many customers don’t know that.

Thieves will wait for the victim to leave and then take advantage of the time the card is still open to continue withdrawing money from their account.

However, there is another thing worth noting. Chase Bank said that every bank transaction requires customers to enter a PIN code. Therefore, in the above 3 cases, the thieves seem to even capture the customer’s PIN.

Although the above form of money theft has just been recorded at Chase Bank and has not been widespread, from this alarming incident, experts recommend users to be careful while withdrawing money at ATMs, always cover up. keypad when entering your PIN and make sure to sign out of your account before leaving.

Convenient feature, but still be careful

Calculating heavy touch to withdraw money / payment is very convenient. However, besides the case of Chase Bank, in the past time, there have also been a number of reports showing that crooks take advantage of this feature to appropriate users’ money.

Specifically, not long ago, cybersecurity company Kaspersky discovered a new variant of Prilex malware, which allows to block contactless transactions (NFC) on PoS payment systems.

When the attack takes place, there will be a message saying, there has been a “contactless error” on the PoS system, the shopper can no longer touch the card, but must switch to inserting or swiping the card. Once the victim falls into this situation, Prilex can collect all the data from the transaction.

With the victim’s credit card details in hand, the cybercriminal group behind Prilex can commit credit card fraud or even attempt to steal the cardholder’s identity.

To limit your risk from Prilex malware, you need to be very careful when you see a “contactless error” message during checkout. When this happens, it’s better to use cash (if available) or be more careful than to cancel the transaction altogether.

Also, you should consider using one card for paying physical bills, and another for online transactions. This way, you’ll know if your credit card information was stolen at a physical location or online.