{"id":61442,"date":"2025-10-27T13:26:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=61442"},"modified":"2025-10-27T13:26:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:26:25","slug":"protecting-the-public-from-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=61442","title":{"rendered":"Protecting The Public From Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, Townhall<\/a> posted an article about the recent success of a combination of the U.S. Secret Service, alongside local law enforcement and state agency partners in ending a credit card skimming operation in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Personnel visited 493 businesses and removed 22 illegal skimming devices, preventing an estimated potential loss of nearly $22.9 million. More than 3,000 point-of-sale terminals, gas pumps and ATMs were inspected.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Teams also distributed educational materials about Electronic Benefit Transfer fraud and skimming to businesses to help them better identify the warning signs of illegal skimming devices in their point-of-sale terminals, gas pumps and ATMs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This outreach operation was conducted by the U.S. Secret Service, along with the Annapolis Police Department, Baltimore Police Department, Bel Air Police Department, Cecil County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Harford County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Howard County Police Department. Personnel from the Maryland Department of Human Services also took part in the operation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

EBT fraud targets the nation\u2019s most vulnerable communities. Each month, money is deposited into government assistance accounts intended to help families pay for food and other basic items. This enables criminals who steal card information to time their fraudulent withdrawals and purchases around the monthly deposits.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are several precautions consumers can take to protect themselves:<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Inspect ATMs, point-of-sale terminals and other card readers. Look for anything loose, crooked, damaged, or scratched. Do not use a card reader if anything appears unusual.<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Whenever possible, use tap-to-pay technology or use debit and credit cards with chip technology.<\/strong>
\n\u2022 If using a debit card at a gas station, run it as a credit card to avoid entering a PIN number. If that is not an option, consumers should use their hand to hide their PIN to block scammers who may be using tiny pinhole cameras above the keypad area to record entries. Use ATMs in a well-lit, indoor location, which are less vulnerable targets. <\/strong>
\n\u2022 Be alert for skimming devices in tourist areas, which are popular targets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being an alert consumer can save you a lot of money and hassle!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, Townhall posted an article about the recent success of a combination of the U.S. Secret Service, alongside local law enforcement and state agency partners in ending a credit card skimming operation in Baltimore, Maryland. The article reports: Personnel … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18675,14597,17548,18674,18673,18671,18676,11619,18672],"class_list":["post-61442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atms","tag-baltimore-maryland","tag-credit-cards","tag-ebt-fraud","tag-electronic-benefit-transfer-fraud","tag-illegal-skimming-devices","tag-pin-numbers","tag-townhall","tag-u-s-secret-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61443,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61442\/revisions\/61443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}