Chelsea Police Chief Ed Toth said Tuesday morning that residents should continue to remain vigilant when it comes to carefully checking for unauthorized charges on your credit and debit cards.
He said that representatives from the Secret Service, banking institutions, state police, the County Sheriff’s Office and other local law enforcement agencies met with Chelsea Police on Jan. 15 to discuss the recent rash of local credit and debit card number thefts.
The banks are cooperating, he said, and “plan to provide spread sheets of all the compromised credit card numbers to the Secret Service” so the federal agency can begin trying to decipher when the hacking took place, how many people were affected and by whom.
As he said in a previous story, unless your compromised card has been used in Chelsea, city police can’t investigate because the crime took place outside of the local jurisdiction. But he reminded folks to immediately contact their bank if they discover an unauthorized charge.
“They (the stolen numbers) are being used all over the place in different states and no matter how many safeguards you may have in place, your cards could still be compromised,” he said.
Residents have reported that their hacked cards have been used all over the country, but so far, none of the stolen numbers have been used in Chelsea.
“It’s hard to tell how many people have been hit,” Toth said, adding that it’s also hard to know when the thefts happened or where because credit card numbers are stolen and sold online and the numbers could be bought immediately, or months after they were originally stolen.
But federal, state, county and local law enforcement agencies are aware of the situation. “We recognize that there is an issue and the Secret Service is compiling all the numbers supplied by the banks.”
But, because of the sheer number of thefts and data breaches taking place across the country, the answers people want probably won’t come immediately.
“I know people want immediacy,” Toth said, “But it will take awhile because it’s not just happening here; it’s taking place all over the country.”
He recommends that people pay close attention when they hand over a credit card to pay for a purchase. “If you notice anything odd, tell a store manager,” Toth said.
For instance, if an employee writes something on a piece of paper after taking your card or swipes the card across an apron they are wearing. Take note and tell a manager.
He also said that there are special covers for credit cards that people can buy that block their numbers from being scanned by thieves.
“There’s no quick or easy fix to this,” Toth said, adding that in October, credit cards will be available with specialized chips that should help solve this problem.
He said it could take months, if not years, to figure out who is committing these crimes.
“The bottom line is check your statements and be sure all the purchases are valid,” he said.
It would be nice if they would tell us which banks are getting hit. If one is getting more hits than a other, then we as consumers could protect ourselves by changing banks. I got hit on Saturday, I call Chelsea PD, they didn’t seem care, only the banks can file a complaint.
i got hit as well – my visa debit card #s were sold online to someone in Spain. My bank (Chase) shut it down and were wonderful. The police don’t care unless there was an attempt to use the stolen cards locally, but clearly the theft of my info occurred locally. By restricting reporting in this way, I believe the police are hampering a full investigation because they don’t want to be swamped with reports. Really disappointed with the way this is being handled. Someone, a local person, stole info through a local business, and sold it online, affecting hundreds of local people. I fail to see how this is not a matter for local police.
My wife and I just had two different cards hit. My daughter and
her husband who live in St. Louis, MO also had two different
cards hit. The common factor on all of the compromised cards is
that they were all used at Polly’s in Chelsea this past summer.