NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) — Some North Texans are on edge when it comes to gas pump skimming devices, but a newly invented piece of technology called a skimming wand could help protect millions of people’s bank accounts.
Across the DFW metroplex, police are finding credit card skimmers stealing people’s private information.
UNT’s Cyber Forensics Lab Director Dr. Scott Belshaw has been working with Denton police and discovered one major obstacle to root out skimmers.
“This problem is on the rise,” Belshaw said. “There’s probably not a person out there that hasn’t been scammed by one of these things.”
And skimmers aren’t easy to spot either, even when looking right at them.
“A lot of gas station owners don’t know what it looks like inside their machines,” he said.
So, Belshaw took it upon himself and designed the skimming wand, which police and gas stations will be able to use to determine if there may be a skimmer inside a particular pump.
“It detects signals. It detects electronics. It detects some of the software,” he said. “It’ll tell you if there’s activity going on in your gas pump that’s suspicious.”
Denton Police Financial Crimes Det. Brandon Hobon said time is of the essence in these investigations.
“Law enforcement doesn’t always know what the technology looks like,” Hobon said. “We want victims to know their card numbers have been compromised.”
If there’s any suspicious activity present, the simple wave of the wand can sound the alarm and contribute to shutting the widespread scam down.
“It’s hurting the consumer. It’s hurting the public. It’s hurting banks. Everybody,” Belshaw said. “We’re all paying for it one way or another.”
