makes the iphone atm story sound different now huh?

@PSN: kingpsyz: No, it doesn't. You can't prohibit private citizens from taking pictures of (most) things. Taking away private rights to such an extreme degree will not prevent skimming.

I finally made the site!

I have to say, after seeing a lot of these stories, I didn't think it'd actually hit home. Glad I've been careful and have been using the same 3-4 ATMs the past few months.

OK - logged in with Interent Explorer again since Firefox still closes the box on me. I wish someone somewhere would take it seriously. :)

Everytime I use an ATM I grab the card slot and give it a good twist. So far they all seem to be solid in WV.

I like the new Wells Fargo ATMs in my area. Every single one in my area was replaced, and the way the card slot is recessed slightly inside the machine with a slope (you'd have to see it) would make it very hard for someone to just slap on a card skimmer on top of it. I would expect it to either be extremely obvious if someone did, or the effort needed to make it believable would be too much for most. Other than that, everything else on the machine is pretty much flush with the unit so taping on a camera would be fairly obvious as well.

While the design might make a criminal less inclined to target their ATMs, if they did it would have to be so good that it might then be harder for the average user to spot.

@Chris Walters:
I didn't say it was right, but had this story been posted first and then the iphone story you'd probablly look at it a bit different.

Holy crap, never thought Cicero would make it onto The Consumerist. (And it's for such a crappy reason, too.) Thank goodness my mom never actually uses the ATM. (She's maybe 15, 20 minutes away from Cicero, and I went to school there when I was a kid.)

Anyway, go CNY! XD

I'm sorry to be from the same country as these thieves, Romania.

I guess it doesn't really matter much but by looking at their names, it's obvious to me they're gypsies, of rromani nationality, who just happened to have been born in Romania.

It's not like there aren't actual Romanians out in the world stealing and committing crimes, but probably more than 70% of the crimes are committed by gypsies (rromani) people born in Romania, who when caught say they're persecuted in our country and demand political asylum or something like that.

It really angers me but there's really nothing we as a country can do against them, except educating them.

Hey, and they did it across state lines. No question about jurisdiction, I guess.

I live near Cicero as well (so many CNYers on Consumerst?) but I'm glad I don't do any banking there.

Do banks protect against this sort of thing?

@Marius H: That's sorta racist. I have a friend of mine who IS a Romani and says her family left Romania because they WERE persecuted and accused of theft and shit. Not cool.

This is one of my rare displys of media-fed paranoia, but lately I've made it a point to only use a couple of ATMs, and probe the hell out of everything by look and touch before thinking of sliding my card in...even the ATM located in the police station!

@PSN: kingpsyz: What does the inside of an ATM have to do with a device that attaches to the outside of ATM?

@Beth Blakeslee: Pssst--I'm from Baldwinsville.

I've been wondering, lately, whether the banks could adopt some really hard to duplicate style for their card readers, and then put a picture of the card reader on the screen of the ATM (real bank machines here all have nice colour screens these days, only those cheap ass convenience store ones still use black and white, and if you're using them, you're getting ripped off, even if you're not getting ripped off). That way, you have a visual reference in front of you before you stick your card in that shows you what it's supposed to look like. If it doesn't look like that -- call the bank and use a different machine.

@PSN: kingpsyz: Hm. I don't see a link between these two stories aside from the fact that they both talk about ATMs. It doesn't seem to me that taking a picture of an ATM from a distance would either prevent or permit any skimming. At least in my case, reading about the iphone dude before reading this story didn't affect my opinion or view of things.

@Marius H: The ethnic origin of the criminals doesn't matter. The criminal behavior does.

@Chris Walters: Agreed. The same way you shouldn't be subject to ILLEGAL, 4th-Amendment-violating, warrant-less wiretapping. Luckily, I live in a Qwest area.

@Marius H: Roma = Romanian Mexicans - an easy scapegoat for the lazy people to say "They're taking our jooooobs and commit crimes!"

It's amazing! The Consumerist covers the subject when it first occurs, and banks and the police just twiddle their thumbs and don't seem even mildly concerned. Now it's suddenly big news, and people are panicking and NOW police and government actually care. A little late now you losers; they already stole the money. A prime case of too little too late.

@Eldritch: The Romani are an ethnic group, so the word you're looking for is 'bigoted'. Not racist.

@Eldritch:

Sorry if what I said sounded as racist, I didn't mean it to.
I personally have nothing agaist gypsies, I don't want them all dead or stuff like that, I was just pointing out that statistically Rromani (it's TWO R for gypsies, that's how they write it, rromani is the ethnicity, Romanian is a person in Romania).

There are several "clans" of gypsies in my country, as in some other countries, and these clans specialize by tradition in something. Some are very good craftsmen, making metal objects and pottery and otherwise working for a living and being honest, others are very good musicians and finally others like these ones that were caught stealing are simply the worst type who don't care of the consequences of their actions.

Rromani people were persecuted during the communist era, 20 years ago, but not to the point Hitler and other countries reached. We didn't burn them in crematories, nor did we sent them like other countries in trains towards crematories.

Nowadays, there are tons of non-government foundations who work to integrate these rromani people into society, the government gives scholarships and reserves places in university for them but even so, there are a lot of gypsies who simply go across the border to some other countries and beg on the streets or steal, because they make money faster this way.

for the post below:

@Marius H: The ethnic origin of the criminals doesn't matter. The criminal behavior does.

It does matter. Actual Romanian people are mostly educated and understand the consequences of their actions and don't commit so many crimes. Gypsies don't care. They're nomads anyway, they know they'll either get a fine which they won't ever pay, or they'll go to jail where they'll have food and bed for free, and if they're sent back to Romania, they'll probably request political asylum.

@Marius H: Roma = Romanian Mexicans - an easy scapegoat for the lazy people to say "They're taking our jooooobs and commit crimes!"

Americans cry because Mexicans get jobs which actual Americans won't ever want. In contrast, rromani people don't usually get jobs but prefer to go from one place to another forcing their kids or using their babies as tools for begging. They could get a job easily in my country, but they actually make more money begging in other countries than what a normal person would get here working in a month, so they don't care.

@Black-Cat: Good point--why was there such a lag between awareness and protection of the public?

For that matter, if your ATM/Check card was cloned and used in this manner, what protections do the banks offer? Do you get your money back when it's stolen in this manner?

Why would thieves target Rochester and Cicero to skim money. If they visited the comments on this website they would have known that hardly anyone has a job here. I guess this is probably the only tourism we're going to get so we shouldn't complain...

They targeted Upstate (and this is WAY Upstate) because Upstaters are thought to be less sophisticated than people in the City, and will not immediately get that there is a skimming device attached to their ATM held in place with duct tape. We're rubes, or at least some people think so.

Sorry to nitpick, but the story says they stole $1.8 million, not $1.4 million.

I visit Syracuse and norther NY often. It is a bit depressing there (downtown Syracuse basically shuts down every day at 5pm when everyone leaves to go home). Shame, too because the architecture in some areas is really nice.

@varro: To be honest, I just like saying "dey took ur jerbs!". Although I AM quite lazy.

@Marius H: Thank you for the insight on the background of the accused criminals. There are still enclaves of rromani Gypsies in the US along with the Irish version- the Travelers (formerly Tinkers). The most famous recent case of Irish Travellers was in 2002 of Madelyne Gorman Toogood, a supposed shoplifter, beating her 4 year old daughter on video.)

The area I grew up in had Rromani people who even then were scammy. They would sell picnic table sets from the back of their pickup trucks (trucks always registered in a far away state) with free delivery and labor to bring the table to your back yard. They would then steal the tables back later in the week (to resell again) along with other outdoor stuff like grills etc...

@Marius H:

Thank you for the information. I've always wondered about this.

@Marius H: Fine, you sound like a bigot. ::rolls eyes:: Honestly, people like you make me angry.

I saw thought that said "Romulan." Nerd alert.