Big Y said it found skimming devices at two of its supermarkets in Connecticut and the company is investigating.
The company said they discovered on June 29 that someone had attached a skimming device to one single terminal in its Naugatuck and Plainville locations.
Big Y is investigating. They said they have inspected all of their terminals and will continue to do and they are working with law enforcement.
"Right now, we don’t have any information that anyone was actually impacted. We just wanted to let people know so they can check their bank statements and their credit card statements," said Big Y Foods communications manager Jade Rivera-McFarlin.
If they learn that any particular customer information was compromised, they will notify them and provide them with additional information so that they can take steps to protect themselves, Big Y said in a statement.
They are urging customers to review their bank and credit card statements for any signs of fraudulent activity.
When asked how long the skimmers were there for, Rivera-McFarlin said they believe it was a very short period of time.
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"Each one in the two locations less than eight hours and we were able to find them, go through our security tapes and then pull them," Rivera-McFarlin said.
Rivera-McFarlin said this isn't the first time this has happened. "Each one in the two locations less than eight hours and we were able to find them, go through our security tapes and then pull them."
If you have any questions or concerns contact your bank or credit card company directly.
Naugatuck police said they had not received any complaints from victims.
They offered tips on how to protect themselves.
- Use a tap-to-pay feature wherever available. The tap-to-pay technology is more difficult to replicate than the chip insert and magnetic strip technology making tap-to-pay more secure.
- Use a mobile wallet. Mobile wallets, (such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, etc) use tokenized authentication which utilizes a device account number rather than a card number. The payment then needs to be detokenized for the merchant/retailer to receive payment.
- Check your account statements regularly and sign up for account alerts.
- Inspect the POS Terminal device before using. If the graphics don’t appear aligned or the number pad on the device feels thick, it could be a sign that a skimmer has been installed. In addition, a slight pull of the number pad/card insert area to check and see if a skimmer device is present is also a good way to check before using the terminal. Also, a small pinhole above the number pad can be indicative that a camera was installed to capture PIN numbers as users enter them.
Any Big Y customer who has questions or concerns should call Big Y at 1-800-828-2688 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
