Clare Avery (name changed to protect identity) received a text message from the St George Bank on Monday afternoon, stating her card had been skimmed and was at high-risk of fraud.

When Ms Avery spoke to a representative of the bank, she was told 10 other clients had also recently had their cards skimmed by a device in an ATM.

The bank also checked several transactions with Ms Avery and all were confirmed to have been performed by her.

Ms Avery said she rarely uses ATMs and could only remember withdrawing cash at one of the bank’s facilities at Lake Innes Village Shopping Centre a few days earlier.

“I am wary of card-skimming devices, so on the rare occasion I would use an ATM I tend to knock the card slot with my hand to see if anyone has tampered with it,” Ms Avery said.

“I also always cover the keypad with my other hand while punching in my PIN.”

The bank’s spokeswoman said the institution had strong security measures in place to monitor fraud.

“Customer accounts are monitored by our fraud detection systems to identify any suspicious transactions and we move proactively to protect our customers,” the spokeswoman said.

“ATMs are also monitored by various security systems, which either seek to prevent or detect skimming or related attacks.

“At present, we have no indication that a skimming attack has occurred at the St George ATM in Lake Innes.

“We would need the customer’s card number to find out exactly why the alert was generated.”

Port News understands the Port Macquarie police are looking in to the matter.

The shopping centre’s management did not return calls before this edition went to print.

❏ BUSY places are targets for criminals installing card-skimming devices in ATMs, the police said.

Crime prevention officer Senior Constable Steve Cherry said the high-tech devices are expensive so the installer usually hangs around close by watching for an hour or more, then remove the device.

“They target high-traffic places where people are in a rush so are less likely to notice a machine had been tampered with,” Snr Const Cherry said.

Devices range from the entire plastic card slot to a small, matchbox-size device installed inside the existing slot.