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Education
StreetSmarts SM
Protecting merchants
from fraud at the gas pump
By Dee and Emily Karawadra
Impact PaySystem
Further reading on
uel retailers share several features that make pay-at-the-pump solutions
them attractive targets for today's criminals.
In particular, outdoor pay-at-the-pump termi-
F nals integrated with automated fuel dispensers For more information on secure payment solutions for today's
(AFDs) are an ideal place for criminals to test the usability petroleum market, please see: "2019: A year of opportunity for
of stolen or counterfeit cards without the risk of interact- U.S. petroleum retailers," by Paysafe Group's O.B. Rawls, The Green
ing with store employees. Sheet, April 22, 2019, issue 19:04:02.
In addition, because they can resell gasoline with little In the article Rawls discussed measures being taken to address the
depreciation in value, criminal rings will often use alarming reach of fraud into this market. "The shift to EMV-enabled
fraudulent cards to purchase large quantities of gas,
which they can sell to willing buyers for cash. Merchants terminals, the deadline for which is scheduled for October 2020,
become frustrated when they receive chargebacks for has been hugely challenging for independent gas stations due to
cards that were swiped at the pump. the cost, a dearth of skilled installation technicians and problems
integrating with legacy pay-at-pump infrastructure," he wrote. "The
Certain parameters have been in place for quite a while
to help authenticate that each cardholder is actually the latter is especially problematic, since 72 percent of Americans prefer
one at the pump swiping the card. These include Address to pay at the pump. Because the challenge is so great, preparations
Verification Service (AVS) and prompting for a PIN, but are already underway to meet the deadline.
ultimately these features can be bypassed, so too often
criminals have been able to get away with a tank of gas, "Implementation challenges have also meant that skimming –
and the merchants have been left covering the loss. stealing card details via hardware attached to payment terminals
The EMV compliance piece, when implemented fully, will – has grown at an alarming rate. The issue is so extensive that
aide in combatting counterfeit fraud, but even the added last Thanksgiving the U.S. Secret Service launched Operation Deep
security of EMV won't cover all the fraud these merchants Impact to tackle credit card skimming devices (following similar
encounter.
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