Maui diners stung in credit card scam

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau

Gerri deBeer no longer gives her credit card to the server when it's time to pay a restaurant check. Certainly not after information was stolen off her card at a Wailea restaurant and used to charge thousands of dollars at Las Vegas casinos.

The Kihei resident is among a "substantial number'' of victims of a credit-card scam involving one or more employees at several South Maui restaurants, according to a U.S. Secret Service official.

Albert Joaquin, special agent in charge of the agency's Asia Pacific region office in Honolulu, yesterday declined to give details of the investigation but said the victims are not only from Maui but from across the United States. He said the full scope of the operation has yet to be revealed, and that it's been around for at least six months on Maui and has involved more than $250,000 in fraudulent charges on the Mainland and in Southeast Asia.

This type of scam is a relatively new headache for banks and credit-card companies, which almost always cover fraudulent charges.

Joaquin said the scheme operates something like this: Once the thieves get your credit card, they quickly swipe it through a hand-held device the size of a cigarette pack that downloads the credit-card information. The thieves can then use the information to manufacture a new card or make purchases over the phone or on the Internet.

In deBeer's case, the unauthorized charges were made in March, four months after she ate at the Wailea restaurant. Following her meal, she gave her credit card to a waiter who took it away briefly and brought it back with a receipt for her to sign. Nothing seemed unusual at the time, she said, and the card was out of her possession for only a minute or two.

Then last month, her credit-card company, Capital One, called deBeer when three $2,100 charges were recorded at three different Las Vegas casinos on March 23. DeBeer had used her credit card the night before at a Maui store, she said, and Capital One noticed the discrepancy and called to say the casino charges wouldn't be added to her bill.

DeBeer was astonished to find out later that her boyfriend and a woman she knew also had fallen victim to the scam at the same restaurant, with the illegal charges occurring within a month of each other. In her boyfriend's case, the unauthorized charges were made in Hong Kong.

While the charges on her boyfriend's credit card were covered by his credit company, also Capital One, her woman friend, who used a debit card, was liable for the first $50 of her loss. She also was denied use of her account for three weeks while it was frozen after thieves cleaned it out.

"I'm just hoping more victims come forward and report this,'' deBeer said.

Capital One's Web site offers tips for preventing misuse of credit cards that include never leaving your card as a security deposit or identification, never lending it anyone, and storing it in a secure place where you will notice immediately if it is missing.

There was no specific advice for avoiding the type of fraud experienced by deBeer and her friends, other than keeping a close eye on your credit-card statements.