The Woodland Police Department has received several calls from victims of fraud whose bank accounts were cleared out by a skimmer placed on an ATM at a credit union.
Police learned about the skimmer after receiving the calls, said Police Chief James Kelly. It is unclear if the skimmer was discovered beforehand, as the devices can be hard to spot.
A skimmer is a device generally affixed to the mouth of an ATM, and it secretly swipes credit and debit card information when bank customers insert their cards into the machines to pull out money. There are also pieces placed on top of cash withdrawal slots that record people putting in their bank codes.
The skimmer at Fibre Federal Credit Union, 1147 N. Goerig St., Woodland, may have been on the cash machine as early as July 29, but it was only discovered this weekend, Kelly said. It is not in police possession, as the device was gone when the police department learned about it.