Vancity cardholders warned of card skimmers

VANCOUVER – Vancity members are being warned to check their accounts for mysterious transactions or ATM withdrawals because someone has been skimming the credit union’s members’ cards.

Vancity, in compliance with the Vancouver police, would not say how long the thefts have occurred, where the skimming took place, whether it happened at a Vancity automated teller machine or a merchant’s debit-card terminal, or how much money was skimmed.

“Because we are working with the police on this, the where, how many and how much is information we don’t share,” said Karen Hoffmann, senior vice-president, governance, risk and compliance for Vancity.

Skimming has been a widespread problem, particularly for those using debit cards when making transactions. Skimmers use a variety of methods, from supplying a fraudulent debit card terminal that inputs the cardholder’s information, to cameras at merchant terminals and ATMs that record personal identification numbers.

Vancity, like other financial institutions, has a monitoring system that records transactions and investigates suspected illegal activity.

“We monitor this carefully and look for any hints that something [illegal] may happen,” Hoffmann said. “We try to be as proactive as we can with our members, and in the ideal case we prevent any loss from happening and have our members come in and reset their cards before any losses. But occasionally some losses occur.”

Vancity Visa cards have security chips, which require cardholders to enter their PINs when conducting a transaction, but the credit union’s debit cards will not have the chip until the fall.

However, many merchants have not kept up with the chip technology, and still use the old swipe-and-sign system without requiring the cardholder to punch in a PIN.

“There is an industry initiative to help merchants to get up to speed. It won’t be 100 per cent effective until everyone has converted,” Hoffmann said.

Those affected by the scam should come in to Vancity to block their cards so no other transactions occur. Their cards will either be reset or replaced.

Vancity will reimburse money stolen by the skim artists.