She was driving home from the conference when she pulled into a gas station to refuel.  She noticed a note in the credit card slot of the fuel pump that stated “credit card machine broken, please pay inside.”  She thought it was strange, but we’ve all seen broken pumps before, not to mention that she was tired and in a hurry. So she walked inside and spoke with the worker behind the counter. The worker told the woman that they would hold her credit card for her while she fueled up her car. The woman left her credit card, returned to her vehicle and fueled up.  All the while, she kept thinking, “something is not right here”, yet she kept fueling her car. The gas tank was full so she entered the store to pay and retrieve her credit card.  Then, the worker asked the woman to enter her pin number into the keypad.  Again, the woman kept saying to herself “something is not right, it feels like a scam” yet she complied.

Sure enough, when this woman returned home, she was notified by her bank fraud department that someone was attempting to use her card.  The woman contacted the police department in the town of the gas station and was told someone would get back to her.  She knew that the source of the attempted fraud, now she was kicking herself for ignoring her intuition.

Let’s take a look at all of the warning signs in this situation.  First warning sign was the “credit card machine not working” sign.  This doesn’t always mean someone is trying to scam you, but it should be something to keep in mind.  The second warning sign was when the worker offered to hold the credit card while the victim fueled her vehicle.  NEVER leave you leave your credit card unattended.  This gave the worker time to swipe the credit card through a handheld skimmer.  The third and final sign was when she asked for the PIN after the fact. The transaction had already gone through, so their was no need to prove that last bit of information.

So the moral of this story is to listen to your intuition.  If the hair on the back of your neck is standing up don’t ignore. Thankfully the woman was able to recognize where the credit card theft took place, and report it to the authorities. However, if the fraud department hadn’t contacted her, the criminal could of potentially gotten away with maxing out her card. This isn’t the end of the world, but catching these things early can save a lot of time and headache.