Criminals have been tampering with card payment terminals to steal card and account data.
The scam, uncovered by the BBC's Money Box, involves fake engineers turning up at shops and taking terminals away to be "repaired".
Instead, they set them up to copy and store details of every card that is inserted in the machine.
The information cannot be used to duplicate a chip and PIN-protected UK card but can be encoded on the magnetic stripe of a blank card, which is then used to withdraw cash in countries where chip and PIN security has not been introduced.
Check your credit report for signs of ID theft
Criminals target cards
"Cards are a favourite target because credit cards can give access to large amounts of cash, while a debit card is directly linked to your bank account, which criminals can clear out," says Peter Turner, managing director of the identity fraud protection service CreditExpert.
The scam, uncovered by the BBC's Money Box, involves fake engineers turning up at shops and taking terminals away to be "repaired".
Instead, they set them up to copy and store details of every card that is inserted in the machine.
The information cannot be used to duplicate a chip and PIN-protected UK card but can be encoded on the magnetic stripe of a blank card, which is then used to withdraw cash in countries where chip and PIN security has not been introduced.
Check your credit report for signs of ID theft
Criminals target cards
"Cards are a favourite target because credit cards can give access to large amounts of cash, while a debit card is directly linked to your bank account, which criminals can clear out," says Peter Turner, managing director of the identity fraud protection service CreditExpert.
