Tens of thousands taken from ‘Comer accounts after skimming scam
By Naoise Coogan
Gardai in Castlecomer are continuing to investigate the extent of an ATM cash machine fraud that occurred in the north Kilkenny town last week leaving hundreds of customers affected.
Tens of thousands of euro were fraudulently removed from bank accounts belonging to civilians from the ATM cash machine on the Square in Castlecomer.
Gardai were made aware of the scam last Friday when a customer attempted to withdraw money and when they discovered they were unable to do so, they went into the bank to investigate. It was then that the bank were made aware of an unauthorised transaction on the account and the Gardai were called.
Yesterday local Gardai visited the bank to try and evaluate how many customers were affected and how much money was involved in the scam.
The garda sergeant said, “we believe that there are over a hundred customers involved as still people who have only recently discovered that they have been affected are coming forward. We believe that the funds fraudulently obtained from customers are in the region of tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. It appears that the suspects took small amounts from each person and in some cases returned to the account and retrieved a second or third amount.
”The fraud department at the Bank of Ireland and the Garda bureau of Fraud Investigation are working together to determine how the scam was operated but initial investigations conclude that a skimming device was hidden on the slot where the card is inserted into the machine and a camera was also located in a prime position so that when the device recorded the card details, the camera recorded the customer’s pin number.
“This was a sophisticated enough device and it involved a lot of physical work. The device had to be put onto the machine in the first place and then the culprits had to travel around to various ATM machines to withdraw money with several cards. We have tracked transactions to as far away as the greater Dublin area at this stage,” said the garda. This is not the first time that an incident of this nature has occurred in the area and Gardai are investigating whether this may be part of a larger nation-wide scam.
The Gardai are advising customers to be extra vigilant when using ATM machines and also with their PIN numbers.
“We would be asking people to change their pin numbers on an annual basis in order to prevent against this type of crime. ” advised the sergeant.