Australia: 'Forking' scam hits ATMs across Victoria

webfact · April 14, 2014

'Forking' scam hits ATMs
Steve Butcher

MELBOURNE: -- The "nightmare" scenario ATM customers most fear – having money "skimmed" from their accounts by card-reading devices – has intensified with new "forking" attacks unleashed across Victoria.

Called "cash trapping", offenders insert an implement similar to a fork to an ATM during a small withdrawal transaction that jams the cash dispenser.

Melbourne's County Court heard that the fork then "entraps" the money from a second transaction, usually the daily limit, after the ATM software records a dispensing error on the first one.

The "forking" scam was recently revealed to a judge who heard that four men had conspired to defraud a total of $184,920 from 248 mostly suburban Melbourne ATMs between December, 2012, and March, 2013, using "card skimming" and "forking" techniques.

Prosecutor Peter Pickering told Judge Liz Gaynor that police began Operation Whitebait after learning that illegal transactions were being committed on ATMs in Europe by Romanian nationals.

Mr Pickering said the response of investigators – from the Victoria Police fraud and extortion squad – followed allegations that similar transactions in Melbourne were targeting local banks and branches.

Full story: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/forking-scam-hits-atms-20140413-36lny.html

-- THE AGE 2014-04-14