Eagle-eyed tourist avoids falling victim to credit card scam

AN EAGLE-EYED tourist has explained how he managed to avoid falling victim to a credit card scam in Austria.

An eagle-eyed tourist in Austria thought something looked wrong with the ATM he was using — and he was right. Picture: YouTube

AN EAGLE-EYED tourist found it “pays to be paranoid” when he foiled an ATM scam in a square in a major capital city.

US cyber security consultant Benjamin Tedesco was suspicious when he saw the green-casing around a card slot had clearly been glued on, The Sun reported.

The device had been placed over the original casing so it would work as a cash machine “skimmer” — allowing fraudsters to harvest people’s debit and credit card details.

Mr Tedesco, who was short of breath and seemed panicked by what he had found, made the discovery near St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria.

The skimming device. Picture: YouTube

That’s not right ... Picture: YouTube

He notified the Vienna Police Department about the scam which may have duped people out of thousands of Euros.

Mr Tedesco says in the video: “While on vacation with my family in Vienna, Austria, I went to grab some cash from an ATM.

“Being security paranoid, I repeated my typical habit of checking the card reader with my hand as I have hundreds of times.

“Today is the day when security awareness paid off.”

The device has a magnetic strip reader, a battery, a switch, and what Ben refers to as a “control board with a four pin connector”.

The rigged-up ATM was located near St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

While he was making the video a woman used a cash machine next to Mr Tedesco, and the security expert checked it was safe to use and warned her about the issue.

While holding the green piece of plastic from the tampered machine, he says: “It pays to be paranoid, as you can see right here.”

This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission.