For a 61-year-old woman, who requested anonymity, life took an unexpected turn when she made a routine stop at a gas station in St Andrew in 2019.

“That was not my regular gas station, but I took a detour, because of traffic and decided to stop at a petrol station along the route. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I told the pump attendant the amount I wanted, and she pumped the gas,” she said.

The woman was then told that since she was using a credit card, she needed to go inside the station’s convenience store to make her payment. “The transaction went through without any issue,” she said.

For a senior accountant who works in the public sector, this was nothing more than a routine purchase for the civil servant, one she makes at least once a week, so she didn’t think much about it afterwards.

“It was not until a few days later that I began to see alerts coming in for a string of transactions that I didn’t make,” she recalled, the distress still evident in her voice.

She immediately called her bank to have her card blocked. Unfortunately, the thieves had already made at least four transactions in close succession on her credit card, all of them at clothing and appliance stores in St James. The transactions amounted to $250,000.

Credit and debit card fraud remains the most prevalent financial crime committed in Jamaica, according to the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ).

The BOJ said in 2018 card fraud accounted for 90 per cent of total losses to deposit-taking institutions, with the figure dropping to 80 per cent in 2019, at which point there was also an uptick in card-not-present fraud in which criminals started to target online activities.

Ricardo Williams, head of branches at JN Bank, said there are several actions people can take to protect themselves from both debit and credit card fraud. He noted that one of the first steps is for individuals, especially seniors, to become aware of the various methods being used by criminals and how to avoid falling prey to them.

He said credit card fraud comes in two main forms. “Criminals can steal your actual card or obtain your credit card number, often by skimming, phishing or vishing. They can also produce counterfeit cards and get credit cards issued to them by making false applications using your identity,” he said.

The JN Bank senior manager noted that in Lewis’ case, what likely happened was that her card was skimmed at the gas station and then a counterfeit card was created using her information.

Credit card skimming is a type of theft where the thief uses a device, known as a skimmer, to steal the information on a credit card. “When your credit card is swiped through the device, the skimmer will steal and store every detail that is on the magnetic stripe of the card,” he explained.

As it pertains to debit card fraud, this occurs when a criminal obtains a person’s card information and personal identification number (PIN). “Without your PIN the debit card is useless, so if your card is stolen or duplicated the criminal must try to find out your PIN. That’s why protecting your PIN is so important,” he cautioned.

A debit card can also be skimmed. In this instance, sometimes a hidden camera is used to record the consumer entering their PIN.

“In another method, the debit handset, where you input your PIN, is ‘swapped out’ with another that either records the entered information so that the fraudster can steal it back later and gain access to your accounts, or wirelessly transmits the data to the fraudster, located nearby,” Williams said.

Additionally, there are cases where ATMs have been tampered with to either record or transmit the customer’s card details and PIN.

HERE ARE SOME SAFETY TIPS TO PROTECT YOUR DEBIT AND CREDIT CARDS

Set up alerts for both your debit and credit cards where possible;

Protect your PIN;

Check your bank statements often;

Pay attention when swiping your cards at merchant locations;

Never let your card out of your sight;

Avoid public Wi-Fi for financial transactions; and

Report problems immediately.