Do you have an alarm system? If you do, did you get one before or after your neighbor was robbed? Few of us are proactive enough to get one without something hitting close to home.

These are the thoughts that came to mind when I saw this:

That, my friends, is a gas pump. Do you notice anything strange about it.  Look a little bit closer:

That security tape is similar to the plastic seal on a bottle of Diet Pepsi. If broken, do not drink! In other words, that tape was put on the credit card swipe of this gas pump as a detective control to identify tampering, like the installation of a skimmer device for example. I won’t name the particular gas station I was at, but it’s green and white about 5 miles from the University. And I have several of their toy trucks in my office. I know that doesn’t narrow it down much, so please don’t try to pull out the geo-location data embedded in the above photos. In actuality, they should be commended for putting something like this in place, but it begs the question…was this proactive or reactive? Things that make you go hmmmm….

That’s why I like credit cards and debit cards that offer $0 liability protection. Combine one of those with Apple Pay, and you’re in pretty good shape. Of course, cash will always be king.

Have you ever had a run-in with a credit card skimmer? If so, where?

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UPDATE 5/20/15: To be fair, I noticed that this particular chain of gas stations has security tape on their pumps at most locations I’ve visited… So I guess there IS a possibility they are being proactive, or had a bad experience at a subset of locations and then deployed the tape widely. Things that make you go hmmm…