Eunice Police Chief Speaks Out on Skimmer Found at Dollar Tree

EUNICE, La. (KLFY) – A skimming device was secretly installed at a Dollar Tree checkout counter in Eunice.

Eunice Police Chief Kyle LeBouef says this device poses many potential risks. “The whole idea behind these skimmers is to steal the information from the cards, whether it’s the magnetic stripe, some of them have cameras built in. When the customer enters their PIN number in there, they can see the keypad and steal that PIN number as well.”

Eunice police received a call Saturday about a skimming device placed at checkout 3 at Dollar Tree. LeBouef says a customer in the store noticed something was wrong when his card didn’t work in the card reader. “Officers came and investigated it and it turned out to be a skimming device placed above the original credit card scanner at the checkout.”

Lebeouf says if customers don’t see any light coming through a card reader, it’s most likely a skimmer. “If you don’t see any backlight coming through the holes in the keypad, that’s a pretty good indication that the original device is covered, so don’t use your card if that’s the case.”

Lebouef says the department is currently working on leads. He says there are no suspects at this time. “We don’t know the timeline or when it was placed there, so that could take time. The review could take hours and hours. We’ll be able to see when it was done, it’s just a matter of figuring out when and what day.”

LeBouef says they could have safely confiscated the device.

The investigations are still ongoing.

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