PLEASANTON, Calif.—Safeway is investigating the possibility of thieves placing card skimmers on POS terminals at several of the grocery chain’s locations. A report claims that two stores in the Bay Area could have been effected.
Krebs on Security reported that financial institutions began to notice their customers had their accounts emptied after shopping at some Safeway stores. The alleged skimming reportedly began in September.
Krebs reported that the fraud may involve Safeway stores in Castro Valley and Menlo Park, Calif. Safeway stores in several Colorado locations may also be affected, the security blog stated.
In a written statement, Safeway denied that Castro Valley and Menlo Park stores were involved, but said they found two skimmers at stores in Dublin and Walnut Creek, Calif., back in September and have not discovered any since. Safeway said no card data was compromised by those skimmers.
“Like all responsible business owners, our stores’ teams routinely inspect all point of sale devices and discovered the two skimmers during these inspections,” Safeway stated in a release.
Krebs reported that the thieves may have either installed devices that captured PINs and debit card data or secretly swapped out existing credit card terminals with ones that were compromised. It appears the thieves targeted specific checkout lanes at stores.