>>719032“From the ATM of Bank of America, $1,000 was drawn four days in a row,” she said.
Heather Hauri got a text from Bank of America that suggested her debit card may have been compromised too. When she responded that she had not made the transactions in question, she was locked out of her account.
“The whole account is frozen,” she said. “You can’t get your own money.”
The EDD office said 350,000 debit card accounts had been frozen due to suspected fraud. Experts say this could be a large criminal enterprise, since the attacks seem to have targeted ATMs all across the state.
“This is a massive operation, because these are physical cards that have to be printed and then somebody has to go to those ATMs everywhere,” said Steve Morang, a certified fraud examiner.
Morang said criminals can buy PIN numbers on the secret web. EDD cards could make stealing personal information easier, because, unlike regular debit cards, they don’t have a chip, he added.
“By having the chip, you have your information that’s on the card encrypted in the chip, and it makes it more difficult, especially to duplicate the cards,” he said. “Whereas the magnetic strip that’s 30- or 40-year-old technology…”
Goertzen said she is frustrated to learn that the way the cards are designed may play a factor.
“Bank of America is paid by the state to take care of this,” she said. “So, the fact that we don’t have a chip, it just signals to me that we’re not as important as their other clients.”
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