Second ATM hit, skimmers blamed

Police and banks fear an organised crime syndicate is closing in on New Zealand money machines as a second Bank of New Zealand ATM in Auckland was found to be tampered with.

The discovery comes as banks this week rushed to suspend hundreds of bank cards that may have been skimmed at a BNZ ATM in New Lynn.

The accounts of 30 people were accessed and $40,000 was stolen.

The BNZ now fears ATMs nationwide could be targeted after a routine inspection yesterday revealed strange markings on a stand-alone ATM at Silverdale.

"This really is not a BNZ issue," said Shona Bishop, the bank's general manager of marketing and business development.

"It affects all ATMs and all banks, every bank card and every customer."

She would not say what had been done to the machine, but another skimming scam was suspected.

Last night the bank had made the Silverdale ATM unavailable and blocked the 1443 cards - including 379 BNZ cards - that had been used in it this month.

It had not had any reports of missing money or unusual behaviour with the Silverdale machine.

The bank said it had checked all machines throughout New Zealand by last night and had not found any other problems.

"But this is scary," Ms Bishop said. "It's definitely organised crime because this is not entry-level criminal activity."

BNZ was working closely with police and other banks to deal with the situation.

"It's a level of fraud in New Zealand not seen before. These are very sophisticated criminals with sophisticated technology and a very organised infrastructure. They work their way through the country, through every bank and every ATM machine.

"What's happened overseas would support that theory, but we don't have any evidence to support that at the moment."

The theft of card information is a major source of fraud overseas but is yet to become a serious problem here.

But police fear this may be the start of crime syndicates.

Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Benefield, head of the Auckland fraud squad, said the scams were often the work of organised groups who sent out "mules" to withdraw money.

"Clearly there is some organisation with this [New Lynn] one because someone has had to get the data to go out and go to the various money machines and everything to access these people's accounts.

"What is concerning will be the fact that someone is now starting to target in this country and then you'll get the dishonest people in restaurants who will start swiping cards for syndicates, if it goes that way. That is what happens overseas."

Organised groups have been caught skimming at ATMs in Australia recently.

Mr Benefield said there had been the "odd case" of people skimming credit cards in this country but that had usually involved looking over someone's shoulder as they keyed in their personal identification number.

The BNZ believes the New Lynn machine was targeted by skimming fraud - where a device is placed over the card slot to copy card details and the PIN is collected via a small camera or "shoulder surfing". No such device has been found.

Fraudsters then make a duplicate card and access accounts at any ATM.

Ms Bishop said the 30 customers affected in New Lynn would be reimbursed, as would any who had lost money in the suspected Silverdale scam.

She urged customers to watch out for unusual markings around the card reader at ATMs and, if in doubt, to contact the bank immediately.

* BNZ customers should phone 0800 275 269 if they find any transaction irregularities. Customers of other banks are advised to contact their banks.

- additional reporting: Louisa Cleave