What do grocery stores and banks have in common? They’re both hotspots for credit card fraudsters in Texas, according to Rippleshot.

 

The fraud analytics company compiled a list of the top ten places fraudsters like to spend money and majority of the list includes various types of retail and wholesale stores. However, one of the hotspots confused analysts a bit.

 

“When we did the top ten list where people… actually go and spend fraudulent cards—grocery stores, home supply warehouse stores, wholesale clubs, department stores, gas stations—none of that was particularly surprising to us,” said Canh Tran, CEO of Rippleshot, a Chicago-based predictive technology provider with a focus on credit cards. “What was, was… federal reserve banks.”

 

Why would someone use stolen credit card information at a federal reserve bank? ATM access.

 

“It’s one of the trends we’re seeing in fraud scam,” said Tran. “ATMs and gas stations.”

 

EMV standard credit cards, otherwise known as cards with a chip, and merchants that require using them present fraudsters with more of a challenge in accessing funds or making purchases. But thanks to ATMs and gas stations these individuals have forged an easy way around this.

 

“ATMs and gas pumps are huge targets right now for skimming and using counterfeit cards because they have extra time to become EMV compliant,” said Tran. “And fraudsters are absolutely going to go after the low-hanging fruit.”

 

With the U.S. attempting to fully implement chip use and the growth of online banking, the nature of credit card fraud is constantly changing. Banks now possess the ability to analyze transactions in real time and send immediate alerts about suspicious activity. Meanwhile, fraudsters have mostly let go of traditional acts of committing fraud and focus on online fraud, something Tran expects to see even more of with the spread of chip use.

 

“What we’ve seen in Europe and Canada is at the beginning, regular merchant fraud goes down. But it turns out that what happens is that online fraud just balloons,” said Tran.

 

Though online fraud may balloon in the near future, right now some of the top Texas merchants that have been compromised are fast food and other eating/drinking places, gas stations, grocery stores, airlines, and banks.

 

For merchants, Tran stresses the growing trend and importance cyber data insurance.

 

“If you’re Target and you get breached, you’ll survive. At the end of the day, you’re big enough,” said Tran. “But a small mom-and-pop store or a small-to-medium sized business that gets breached and it's publicly known, there’s a 60- or 70-percent chance that in the next six months you’ll go out of business.”

 

To see the full list of where credit card fraudsters spend money, click through our gallery above.