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Scam scam scam
(lemmy.sdf.org)
Three days before Thanksgiving, someone was trying to steal peoples food stamps.
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this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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This became a big problem in New York a few years ago. Thieves would put skimmers on top of the card readers at supermarket checkouts and then drain the food stamp accounts of people who went through those checkouts. The state initially refused to compensate victims despite the fact that this wasn't even a scam that someone could chosen to avoid. The only safety measure was to try and disassemble the card reader to see if there was a skimmer that would come off.
Eventually politicians changed the policy and compensated people after there were so many cases of theft that major newspapers were writing about it. I don't know if theft is still frequent but less talked-about because victims get compensated, or if the authorities managed to put an end to it.
I'm not surprised that criminals would do such a thing, given that they do so much worse.
What shitty system even allows this to happen? It's not like the microchip in credit cards that allows for secure transactions is particularly expensive.
Small addendum because I looked it up:
Apparently checks aren't the only ancient aspect of the US banking system. Chip cards have apparently only come around in the past few years, prior they used the insecure magnetic strip cards that can literally just be copied.
On some revolut (finance app, popular in ireland) cards the magenetic strip is disabled by default.