New Secure Card Readers at Some Missouri Pumps

I've heard reports of this happening and now I've seen it myself. There are some Missouri gas stations that appear to be deploying tamper-free payment methods in an effort to foil some of the fake card reader tactics that have victimized many over the years.

It wasn't that long ago that the Missouri Highway Patrol warned that they were seeing an uptick of card skimmers appearing at gas stations around the state. Over the past few months, fake card readers were found in Canton, Missouri and also Rolla and Kansas City. Today, I stopped to gas up my vehicle and noticed this fancy new card reader that looks like it would be nearly impossible to dupe. Instead of a card swiper, it has a chip reader with a lock box containing the point-of-sale touchscreen.

Older readers that jut out from the pump were easier for villains to insert card skimmers into. As a certified computer tech that has worked on point-of-sale systems before, this new design would be hard to foil and that's a good thing. I'm now waiting to see if there are more reports of the old readers being replaced in Missouri by these new ones. I'm not naive and know that criminals will likely figure out a way to steal from these also, but the more hurdles put in their way to protect the innocent are a good thing.