[laurentl]

This reminds me of a card skimmer I found on an ATM about 12 years ago (unfortunately, after I had used it to withdraw cash). I basically lucked into finding the camera hole and managed to rip the fake cover + video camera + transmitter from the frame of the ATM. With that in hand (unfortunately I dis not think to also take out the card reader itself), I called the police. While I was on the phone with them, a foreign couple tried to use the ATM. I told them not to, they pretended not to understand, I went back to my phone call with the police. When I turned around, the card reader was gone: that nice couple was the thieves, they were somewhere near (to catch the video footage of people entering their PIN) and swooped in to retrieve the card reader and the data stored in it.

The police squad that came around was fairly decent, but they didn’t really seem to be on the lookout for this type of crime; one of the cops confessed that he’d used the same ATM the night before and was genuinely impressed that I’d spotted it. Spending a couple of hours in the police station to give my statement (rather than going to the restaurant as initially planned) sucked, of course. I was shocked at how bad I was at describing the thieves, even though I’d seen them and talked to them.

Following up with the bank was similarly frustrating; the bank director told me he personally checked the ATM at opening and closing time, meaning the thieves installed and removed the card reader every night. I never found out if the other victims were made aware of the fact that their card details were stolen.

So, yes, thieves are brazen and smart; police are nice (sometimes) but helpless or just don’t care about these types of crime; and even though I did all I could to mitigate the situation, I still felt a bit shitty and helpless about the whole experience.