Denise Ritter was having what some might call a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day when she found out someone had withdrawn $500 from her Dollar Bank account.
Early Monday morning, Ritter was getting ready for the first day of a new job at the University of Pittsburgh when she slipped in the shower and “completely face-planted.”
“I have a huge goose egg on my forehead,” Ritter said the following day. “And as of today, I have two black eyes.”
She took a minute to rest before she felt OK to drive and wound up walking into work late. Around 9 a.m., she took a quick glance at her bank account balance through the Dollar Bank app.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, that's not right. That's much less than it ought to be,’” she said.
There had been a $500 withdrawal the day before from an ATM in Pine Township, about 25 miles from her home in West Homestead.
“I didn't leave the house yesterday, so A) I knew it wasn't me,” Ritter continued. “But B) I didn't have $500 on hand either.”
Officials with Dollar Bank officials sent out a warning to customers Monday to monitor their accounts for suspicious activity, stating that some had been affected by "ATM skimming activity."
Skimmers are disguised and affixed to ATMs and PIN pads to record customers’ account information. Dave Campbell, Dollar Bank’s vice president of corporate security, said the recent string of incidents affected only a “small percentage” of its clientele, though he wouldn’t share how many people were impacted.
Campbell declined to disclose which branches were affected, though he noted that illegal skimming activity was confirmed at multiple locations in the Pittsburgh region.
“We're trying to be proactive in identifying the cards that potentially went through a skimming device, notifying customers, giving them a card for their protection,” Campbell said. “We also partner with local, state and federal law enforcement in the investigation so that we can make sure we identify the criminals and hold them accountable.”
Were other banks affected?
A spokesperson for PNC said, while the bank hasn’t received any reports of skimmers at its branches in the Pittsburgh area, it recommends customers always check for signs of tampering before inserting their card.
Jon Longwill of First Commonwealth Bank echoed that advice.
“While we also have measures in place to identify and avoid skimming or any fraud-related activity, our best defense is continually educating First Commonwealth customers of what to be on the lookout for,” Longwill told WESA.
First Commonwealth had not experienced any recent skimming attempts at its ATMs as of Tuesday, either. According to Longwill, ATMs at the bank’s branches are routinely inspected several times a day.
Skimming, however, is not unique to Dollar Bank. The credit score service company FICO reported a 500% increase in skimming activity from 2021 to 2022 nationwide
“This story has been going on for 20 years,” said Rahul Telang, a professor of information systems at Carnegie Mellon University. “This is only a new version of that.”
The FBI estimates that ATM skimming costs financial institutions and consumers more than $1 billion annually.
Telang said banks should carefully consider where their ATMs are located, and refrain from placing them outside. On the customer side, he says the best thing one can do is be aware of the surroundings and use caution.
Security experts recommend customers always check for signs of tampering before inserting their card, pull at the edges of the keypad before entering a PIN and cover the keypad to prevent hidden pinhole cameras from recording the code.
The FBI advises people to use credit cards in favor of debit cards since credit provides stronger protection against fraud. But Telang said not everyone is in a position to follow that advice.
“Sometimes you want to make sure that you spend only what you have, and the debit card becomes a big help,” he explained. “The credit card allows you to spend more than you can. Some people don't even have a credit card.”
Still, even those who take all of the suggested precautions face the risk of ATM fraud. Michael Moore of Castle Shannon said he always jiggles the slot before inserting his card at an ATM or gas station to check for skimmers.
Moore woke up Sunday to a notification for a $500 withdrawal from his Dollar Bank account that neither he nor his kid initiated.
The following day, he visited a branch to get his money refunded. There, he met multiple people who reported the same kind of problem with their accounts.
“I'm lucky and blessed that it wasn't a life-altering thing,” Moore said.
For others, an insufficient balance could lead to a bounced check, a negative impact on one’s credit score — “the domino effect” Moore said he’s lucky to have avoided.
The stakes, however, were higher for Denise Ritter. By the time she could get out of work and meet with a representative at the Dollar Bank branch in Squirrel Hill, a second $500 withdrawal had been made in her name.
The bank said it would issue her a new card and refund her cash in seven to 10 days, but she needed that money to make her monthly mortgage payment.
“I've just started a brand new job, I'm not going to be paid until the end of May,” Ritter explained. “So if the bank is going to hold $1,000, I'm not going to be able to pay my bills this month.”
Ritter said she pressed the bank’s customer service representative to refund her account and was able to get confirmation that her balance had been restored before she left the branch.
Going forward, she plans to use a credit card for everything.
“I just think it's so difficult for the average person to know how to handle something,” Ritter added. “If I wouldn't have been actively looking at my account, would it have been completely emptied by the time I noticed it?”
