Have Skimmers and Shimmers hit Argentina's ATMs yet?

There are 5 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 2,172 times. The latest Post () was by Splinter.

1st Official Post

    Credit card thieves have a lot of stress, always having to stay ahead of those who would thwart them. (Perhaps this calls for The Day of the Credit Card Thief, to recognize this under-acclaimed profession with a national holiday?)


    Having mastered the skimmer, which extracts data from the magnetic stripe on cards inserted into ATM's, thieves soon found themselves confronting chip-based cards. What is a hard-working thief to do? Oh! Someone invented the shimmer, which can be surreptitiously inserted into an ATM to access information from chips, including card numbers and PIN numbers. Simple!


    To read how these work and to see a photo of a shimmer:

    https://www.komando.com/happen…tent=2018-05-09-article-a

    The empanada delivery guy needs a card impression. He hands me the boxes to hold, with the card on top, while he lays the receipt over the card and rubs it with the flat of his ballpoint. When he can more or less see the numbers on the paper, I sign it and add my wife’s DNI.


    Not quite contactless, but next best thing.

    Because of the rampant counterfeiting in Argentina, even of small denomination bills,

    I’m surprised that we haven’t read about ATM skimmers or shimmers at local machines. Surely that would be easier than printing and trying to pass off all those 5 peso notes!

    • Official Post

    Well, if the government was serious about modernising the country it would push the banks to at least roll out chip and PIN as the default method of paying for goods and add contactless payments as an alternative too.

    I always feel uncomfortable paying with my card, especially when the girl at the till inputs the three digit security code from the back of the card. It wouldn't take a genius to remember all those details, that's for sure.

    All this fucking nonsense of:

    DNI

    Signature

    Clarify signature

    Telephone number


    jeez!