Newport News, Va. - Regina Nazareth-White isn't just angry with the thieves she says stole $2,000 from her bank account. She's "totally afraid. Who's watching me now? How much information do they have?"
Nazareth-White says she can't be 100% certain how the thieves stole from her, but says her bank told her someone probably had a card reading skimmer on an ATM she used. Then, the thieves used thermal technology to sense which buttons she pressed in order to steal her pin number.
"The thieves have passed our methods of protection. When they start electronically scanning you, anything is possible," Nazareth-White said. "It was very hard to believe this had happened."
On Saturday, she got an email from Citibank warning her about potential fraud and a $400 withdrawal from on ATM at a WAWA on Mercury Boulevard in Hampton. She went and checked her bank statement and realized there were five withdrawals in three minutes, totaling $2,000.
Nazareth-White says she has gotten the money back, but is now Taking Action Against Crime, hoping to warn others about how the sophisticated crooks. She says the bank told her to wiggle the card reader at ATM's to make sure there's no skimmer, and to press other buttons on the keypad when putting in pin numbers, so no one can use thermal technology to steal the numbers.
The incident has been reported to police, but no leads so far on who did this. "I would love to find them, nail to the ATM machine, set them on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Oyster Point Road with a sign to say, 'I'm a thief.'"
