PIN Cashing

Paying for things with plastic sure is convenient, isn’t it? Instead of carrying around wads of cash, all we need is a debit or credit card, and we can shop until we drop. Or until we run out of money, whichever comes first.

But let’s say we go to pay for that new must-have item, only to find that we don’t have enough in our account to cover the purchase. Upon further investigation, we discover that $500 has been withdrawn from our checking account—but we didn’t withdraw it. It looks like we’ve been hit—nay, struck—by a smooth criminal. This smooth criminal somehow got their mitts on our PIN or other account info, and they used that info to steal our money. This is known as “PIN cashing,” and it’s become a pretty big problem in our post-cash consumer world.

Using some combination of data breaches, hacking, card readers, and good old-fashioned scam tactics, these nefarious PIN cashers somehow get access to our PIN, or to the info they need to change it. Then they either create a new fake card with our account information, or just use our info online, and before we know it, they’ve wiped out our account and made off with our personal identifying information, or PII.

Legislators, retailers, and financial institutions do what they can do combat this phenomenon, like adding microchips to credit and debit cards for verification, but they haven’t managed to completely eliminate the threat.