Can You Spot The Scam Device On This Cashpoint? Police Issue Warning

British Transport Police

A new, near-invisible take on card theft is being used in the UK, British Transport Police have warned.

While many ‘card skimming’ machines are clunky, and easily seen, the new machine is barely visible at all.

You can see a tiny dot over the keypad - which is a pinhole, through which a camera lens points downwards.

The criminals have attached a blank grey tile, with the camera hidden behind it to steal customer’s PIN numbers as they type them in.

Combined with another component fitted over the card slot, it’s a kit which could steal all the details needed for criminals to go on spending sprees with victims’ cards.

British Transport Police said that the machine was found on a cashpoint outside Sainsbury’s in Manchester Piccadilly.

Last year, the European ATM Security Team said that such new ‘slimline’ ATM skimmers are proving far harder to spot - with some of the hi-tech models remaining in place for up to five days before banks are alerted.

The report was based on crime updates from 19 countries in Europe.

 Other criminal gangs have used  malicious software to overwhelm ATMs - and one European country has seen machines uprooted and their internal workings removed and rebuilt by criminals before being replaced.

These machines are known as ‘ghost terminals.’