SAN JOSE, Calif.—A new report indicates that ATM skimming incidents are rising dramatically.
According to FICO and its FICO Card Alert Service software, ATM card skimming incidents increased 546% from 2014 to 2015.
The rise in skimming incidents over the past two years has been regularly reported by CUToday.info.
But FICO notes that consumers are at greatest risk when they use cash machines that are not run by financial institutions. FICO reports that 60% of all skimming incidents occurred at non-FI ATMs.
Analysts, as well as the FICO report, attribute the rise to crooks turning to old-school theft measures as EMV takes hold in the U.S.
“As the U.S. approaches chip adoption the criminals are taking this opportunity to perpetrate as much card present counterfeit fraud as possible before it is no longer viable for them to do so,” FICO stated.
Credit.com suggested that one method to avoid ATM skimming fraud is to look for ATMs that allow account holders to withdraw money without using their cards. The number of “cardless ATMs” have been increasing, yet there are still only very limited locations where the new technology is available.