Police departments in Arizona have reported a whopping 30 cases of skimmers, illegal reading devices attached to credit card readers to steal electronic data, discovered at state gas stations in the past six months, prompting the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures to warm customers to be careful with their cards, the Arizona Republic reported.
Skimmers have been reported in Maricopa, La Paz and Mohave counties, and in the cities of Phoenix, Lake Havasu City, Bullhead City, Kingman, Glendale and Surprise, but the police noted the scammers appear to move into and out of each area quickly.
To combat the problem, last month Gov. Jan Brewer directed the Department of Weights and Measures to increase training and inspection efforts to search for skimmers, and over the next few weeks state inspectors plan to up the number of inspections on gas pumps, hold training seminars for its officers on technology used to detect skimmers and work with professionals in the petroleum industry to collaborate on detection and protective measures, Shawn Marquez, director of compliance programs for the state agency, told the Arizona Republic.
Skimmers are about two inches long, with electrical wires attached.
