BOISE, Idaho — Fraudsters have resorted to a new method in stealing your credit card information costing victims thousands in lost personal funds.
The Boise Police Department is warning of a rise in ‘Tap-to-Pay’ scams.
On September 28 officers arrested and charged 52-year-old Wenguang Hu, of California.
He's accused of making 10 separate tap-to-pay transactions at five different retail stores, using stolen information of several victims.
In total Hu made $2,000 in counterfeit purchases, including hundreds-of-dollars worth of gift cards.
"Detectives here in Boise and across the country are seeing a significant shift in their investigations from traditional stolen card fraud to this type of highly organized, technology-driven scheme," police said in a statement. "The stolen financial data being used is often obtained through data breaches, phishing links and other scam methods. In these tap-to-pay operations, traveling suspects will load stolen payment card information into digital wallets on their phones, allowing them to complete fraudulent transactions without even possessing the victims physical cards."
In Hu's case, investigators believe he traveled to the Boise area as part of an organized retail crime operation.
Police say others have been arrested recently for similar offenses.
"For the average consumer, unless a payment card has gone missing or you’ve received a fraud alert from your bank, you may not regularly check your financial statements," said Boise Police ORC Detective Marshall Plaisted. "These retail crime organizations are banking on that.”
To help prevent future fraud like this, police have began partnering with neighboring law enforcement agencies, local retailers, and prosecutors to receive real-time notifications of fraudulent tap-to-pay transactions so they can act swiftly.
