TYLER, Texas —
Once again scammers are keeping some East Texas cities on their toes. Thieves are targeting gas pumps to steal money without you knowing.
Within the last few years Public Information Officer with the Tyler Police Department, Don Martin, says there has been an uptick in scams happening across Tyler.
"It does happen here. It has happened here. It happened here quite frequently over the past several years," Martin said. “You can take all the cities surrounding Tyler, Jacksonville, Bullard, White House, Lindale, Mount Pleasant, I mean, they've been everywhere."
The Police Department is working to combat the con-artist’s motives by having a separate fraudulent unit to educate the community and prevent more scams in the future.
"We've created our own task force, that the predominant skimmers, which are coming from mostly [the] Houston area,” Martin said. “Other larger cities, they don't come here as often because they know that we're catching them, we're arresting them."
Anyone who commits this crime could face up to life in prison. For example, Yoerlan Suarez-Corrales was charged last year in Smith County with organized criminal activity.
It can be difficult to spot a fake card reader, but there are a few things you can do to avoid becoming a victim of the scam.
"What you can do is to protect yourself is when you go to a gas pump, look and see if there is a seal on the door itself," Martin said. The seal is usually tapped on the exterior of the gas pump. If it looks tampered with the pump has probably been compromised.
Martin advises using a pump close to the tellers eye-viewing, scammers usually target the pumps farthest away. To avoid the hassle altogether, he says to pay with cash instead.
Here are more tips to keep you from becoming a victim of the scam:
