Shoppers at a Chelsea Market Basket got a nasty surprise this week when employees uncovered a credit card skimming device surreptitiously placed at a checkout terminal. The discovery was made a mere six minutes after the skimmer was installed. Police are scratching their heads to see if there's a thread connecting this incident to a series of similar skimming capers across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as reported by CBS News.
According to CBS Boston, Market Basket's security caught the suspicious device yesterday afternoon, promptly at 4:24 p.m., right after it was placed there at 4:18 p.m. by an unidentified individual. Clearly vigilant, the store's swift detection of the device may have thwarted the theft of customer credit card data. With several other devices found in the region recently, the last thing anyone needed was another hit.
WCVB reports that the skimming device discovery took place at 4:34 p.m. Tuesday, with Market Basket employees calling the police immediately after its unearthing. Just like in a game of cat and mouse, the would-be thieves planted their devices in plain sight, but store management was one step ahead.
"We have the device and are working with Market Basket as well as our regional partners to see if the devices are related to other incidents," Chelsea police communicated on social media, as per WCVB. It seems Market Basket has been frequent in the skimmer's sights, with previous incidents in Reading, Somerville, and Haverhill. Grocery shopping these days, it seems, requires not just a keen eye for sales but for criminals' traps as well.
In the meantime, the Chelsea police force has issued a public service announcement, urging customers to stay alert. They're advised to give the payment terminals a good once-over before swiping their cards. "Consumers are advised to visibly check any electronic device on which they use a bank card for transactions before inserting their card and to ask for management help if they are unsure," Market Basket echoed in a statement obtained by CBS Boston. It seems the long arm of the law has been busy, stretching out to protect unsuspecting shoppers from the clutches of fraudsters lurking in the shadows.
The advice doesn't stop there, though, as Chelsea police shared a slew of tips for keeping personal finances safe, including using mobile wallets like Apple Pay, which offer increased security through tokenization. "An alternative to swiping your card is paying by a mobile wallet, including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or Google Pay. This form of payment is secure because your credit card information is tokenized and rendered useless if a thief were to get a hold of the numbers," a statement from the Chelsea Police to WCVB reminds us.
