Customers at a local Bank of America are on high alert after a thief stole thousands of dollars from their accounts through an ATM card scam.
In the past two days, at least 26 customers at the Bank of America branch in Lacey Township, New Jersey reported that someone made withdrawals from their accounts at ATM machines in North Jersey. Some customers say over $1000 was stolen from their accounts. All the victims used the ATM at the Lacey Township Bank of America prior to the thefts.
“At this point, the belief is that it’s likely that the machine was tampered with well before the last two days, possibly weeks ago if not a month or so ago,” said Lacey Township Police Chief David Paprota.
Police are not sure at this point what type of equipment was used to copy data from the cards and obtain pin numbers.
On Monday, police released surveillance photos of a man who they say planted a strip reader and a tiny camera on the ATM of the Bank of America in Evesham Township in a skimming scam. Investigators are unsure at this point however whether the two situations are related.
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“We are currently looking into the connection with Evesham Township,” Paprota said. “A very similar type of situation occurred there.”
Police are urging customers to check their statements, immediately report any fraudulent activity and change their pin numbers.
“Bank of America has good systems and they’re very secure,” said Jim Allen, a Bank of America customer. “My sense of it is they just need to keep on top of things. Look at what happened at Target a few months ago.”
Lacey Township Police continue to investigate.
