Many purchases may be made over the phone or Internet and do not require the actual presentation of a physical card. Details required are simple, name as written on card, credit card number and expiry date. In its more sophisticated form this is a part of what has become known as “identity theft”.
Sophisticated criminal organizations operate that specialize in copying the electronic details of the credit card. When someone pays a restaurant bill it rarely occurs to him or her that while the restaurant is getting authorization a restaurant worker is copying the details of the card. Low paid service workers can find this a useful supplement to their wages, provided the risks are low. This can be done using an electronic reading device about the size of a cigarette packet.
A more sophisticated development involves breaking into a point-of-sale device and placing a more advanced reader into the device. The reader is left in place for a period of time and then removed allowing details of all of the cards that have been used for purchases to be extracted. These details can be sent electronically anywhere in the world and then transferred to cloned cards. These cards can then be used until the skimmed cards are identified and blocked. Banks also have to cope with remote scanning devices placed in proximity to ATMs and used to attempt to obtain details of cards and related passwords used in these machines.