“Both my wife and I have had our Debit/Visa cards compromised in this week.”

Stock photo by PoPville flickr user Elliot Mitchell

Ed. Note: A couple weeks ago we spoke about potential ATM fraud in Logan Circle.

“Dear PoPville,

Both my wife and I have had our Debit/Visa cards compromised in this week. The cards are linked to separate accounts, and the dodgy charges appeared on consecutive days.

My wife incurred two charges in Canada, and I incurred three: 2 in Canada (Mac’s Convenience Store, and Edinburgh Liquors) and one that I have not been able to trace successfully, but it is likely a Hookah store in Canada.

I have just been into our local branch of TD Bank (P street, NW) to get a new card and spoke with the Manager (who is consistently excellent). He told me that TD Bank has had no data breach, but said that he has had a number of customers from the area come into the Bank this week to dispute charges and obtain new cards. As a consequence he suspects there is a store, or stores, in the Columbia Heights/U Street area that has/have been skimming cards.

Given that both my wife and I have used our separately linked cards at only a handful of vendors (two grocery stores, and perhaps a one local restaurants) in the past week, the field of data is quite small, but I don’t want to point fingers without more information.

Our cards are unlikely to have been compromised at an ATM, as all transactions were processed as visa transactions. The kindly Bank Manager told me that he is required to inspect their onsite ATM machines twice a day for tampering, and warned that in the recent past, a convenience store ATM at 12 and U had been found to be equipped with a card skimmer and camera.

Have others in the neighborhood encountered any issues, or noticed modifications on card machines in the area?”