The Moscow UBEP press officer Filipp Zolotnitski says that the easiest way is to "clone" the user's card. "Any plastic card is used -the key of a hotel suit, store-discount or telephone card. With the help of special devices the thieves re-code it so that the teller machine cannot distinguish it from the genuine one", he said.
Other methods of swindling are wide-spread. Criminals are hired to work at a post office in order to intercept registered letters containing just-opened cards. Thieves are often in collusion with employees of stores or restaurants and roll cards twice of thrice. Or just produce an additional device and ask for inserting the pin code, reading the information from the card's magnetic tape.
In the opinion of Filipp Zolotnitski, the best of the world card swindlers are South-East Asian. Powerful criminal groups exist in Europe, particularly in France (Algerian group). In comparison with other countries, in Russia it is the job of mostly young people - high school students organized in close-knit criminal groups. The average age of plastic card swindlers is 18 to 23 years.
