Chip and pin cards were once heralded as a way to all but eradicate fraud but as we reported before, scammers have found ways to get around the chip and pin security measures and defraud customers once more.

And as chip and pin grows ever more popular, criminal gangs appear to be finding even more ways around the system. Some recent reports have shown that criminals are stealing card-readers from petrol stations and shops around the country, dismantling them, installing their own devices into the readers which can record card numbers and PINs, before reassembling the reader and returning them to a shop. Some of these devices are so sophisticated that there are rumours that they can transmit all the input details to a mobile phone.

Once the criminals have the data they need, the cards are cloned and used in countries where chip and pin is not yet prevalent – countries which include America, Italy and Australia.

Criminals are getting their hands on the chip and pin machines through various devices – some threaten or bribe staff to hand their machines over, others will get a job in their target shop. Some will even resort to social engineering where they pose as engineers who are replacing the chip and pin machines with an ‘upgraded’ version.

Although chip and pin has cut card fraud levels, some are worried that levels will continue to rise as criminals find even more ways to get around the system. The system also appears to be shifting the card fraud away from the UK to overseas – whereas cloned cards would often be used in the UK in the past, the new chip and pin measures just mean that the cards are being used abroad instead.

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