Threat to chip-and-pin terminals

Criminals are tampering with chip-and-pin terminals in shops to steal customers’ bank card details, Radio 4’s Money Box programme has learned.

The problem has led the bank cards industry to issue guidelines to retailers.

The British Retail Consortium says it believes stricter security has eliminated the problem.

The UK bank cards industry however believes this sort of fraud is continuing despite the new measures.

The British Retail Consortium and the UK Payments Administration both told Money Box they had heard of instances of criminals dressing up as engineers and entering shops, asking to examine chip-and-pin terminals.

They then take one away to be ‘repaired’, but instead they alter it so it can record the pin and card details of all future customers who use it.

The fraudsters cannot create a new chip-and-pin card, but they can use the details to create their own magnetic stripe bank cards to use in countries abroad which do not yet have chip-and-pin.

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