Vancouver International Airport: Credit Card Scam

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Nando Times

Credit card scam uncovered at Vancouver International

The Associated Press

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (November 19, 2000 9:13 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Workers collecting fees at Vancouver International Airport stole credit card numbers from hundreds of travelers to make counterfeit cards, police said.

Two men and a woman who worked at a kiosk at the international gate collecting airport improvement fees have been arrested and face fraud charges.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Peter Thiessen said they would swipe the cards through a legitimate charging machine, then through "an illegal device - smaller than a pager - that would record that number." They would then produce counterfeit cards.

Travelers through the airport had to pay a fee ranging from $3 to $9. Police believe that more than 600 credit card numbers were stolen over the past six weeks in the scam, Thiessen said. Police are working with credit card companies to find out who else was involved, he said.

The suspects, arrested Thursday and Friday, were employees of a private company contracted by the airport to collect the fee.

Authorities were alerted by a credit card company that noticed a high number of abnormal charges, all racked up after the airport improvement fee had been paid.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), November 19, 2000


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