GREENSBORO, N.C. — Beware of skimmers at the pump around the Triad.
Tony Perez is the owner of a fuel distributorship and leases out gas station franchises in the Carolinas.
"We have approximately 13 franchises leased out in the Triad."
Perez said skimmers are a growing problem.
"I'd say probably 2014, 2015 that’s when really the momentum started."
Since then, he's found about 12 skimmers at his Triad locations.
"A dozen in the Triad, more in Salisbury and other cities in North Carolina."
And even more, if you count his South Carolina spots. He said he's had reports of about 35 skimmers found altogether.
"It's frustrating because I know law enforcement is doing everything they can."
Perez said he goes directly to the Secret Service and local detectives when he catches wind of a potential skimmer scam.
"Protocol is we’re advised to call the Secret Service, the local Secret Service agency or the Greensboro City Detectives in their case, and they can come out, investigate, determine if one is there and take it off."
Perez said he's lost a lot of money because of skimmers. How much you might ask?
"Hundreds of thousands of dollars, the impact," Perez said. "It's not a direct loss for fraudulent activity, but the fear factor that impacts the inside sales. People don’t want to purchase from certain locations because it has gotten a bad reputation, a lot of times unnecessarily, so it's hard to guess a number but it’s absolutely six-figures-plus."
He says one of the Greensboro locations he was affiliated with even closed down because of its bad reputation for skimmers.
"There’s a store in Greensboro we were affiliated with, it's gone, it’s nonexistent because there were so many skimmers found at that site," Perez said. "The word spread to the motoring public and it became common knowledge that that location was not safe to purchase fuel from."
It's an almost invisible way thieves are taking your information, and money at the pump.
"They need to be physically inspected and consumers can't open the pump panels to look inside, and even if they could they’re hard to find they’re very small."
Perez said he has stepped up security, and has spent a lot of money doing so.
"We’ve asked our franchisees to inspect the pumps multiple times a day now that the skimmers have moved to the inside of the dispensers where they used to be more external devices."
And that's not all.
"New dispensers are required by 2020, Visa and MasterCard are requiring the new chip dispensers and those are $15-$16,000 dollars a piece not counting installation, and you can imagine how many pumps there are out here."
Perez said part of the problem is these skimmer scam artists know when law enforcement is on their tail, and act accordingly.
"When {the criminals} have one placed and they notice it's been identified, someone is paying attention to it and remove it usually before law enforcement gets to it," Perez said. "They don’t leave them indefinitely there’s a window of time."