Hundreds of Ukiah-area residents have had their credit and debit card information breached in the past week, resulting in fraudulent charges and blocked and canceled cards.
"It's horrible. It's widespread right now," said Ukiah Police Detective Dave McQueary. His own credit card information was used last week in the Fresno area for a $464 purchase, he said. The illegal usages reported to the department were made outside of the county, he said. Illegal transactions occurred as far away as Milan, Italy.
The department is following leads to determine how and where the breach occurred and whether it could be related to the Lucky Supermarket card skimming incident, he said.
The breach affected debit and credit cards issued by multiple banks in the Ukiah area but is not believed to have occurred within the institutions, he said.
"It wasn't a breach within the bank," said Katie Kight, marketing officer at Savings Bank of Mendocino County, one of those affected.
As a precaution, the bank blocked access to about 1,000 debit cards that MasterCard notified them could have been compromised, she said. Only a small percentage of those account holders reported that their accounts had been accessed by an unauthorized party, she said. It was unclear how MasterCard determined which accounts were at risk.
The people whose debit cards were blocked still have access to their accounts and can write checks, Kight said.
Other area banks also were blocking at-risk debit and credit cards, McQueary said.
McQueary said this is the most widespread episode of credit and debit card fraud he's seen. He suspects there were multiple skimming devices being used to steal information from credit and debit card scanners.
The perpetrators appear to be sophisticated, in some cases manufacturing credit cards with the stolen information, McQueary said, noting some of the reported fraud was committed by people carrying cards that were not physically stolen.
McQueary and Kight urged all debit and credit card users to frequently monitor their accounts and be on the alert for fraudulent charges.
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