A Northern California supermarket chain has notified its customers that their financial accounts may be in jeopardy after credit-card skimmers were found in 20 stores.
Lucky Supermarkets, which operates 234 stores, issued the notice Nov. 23, informing customers that rigged card readers were found in the stores' self-checkout lanes during routine maintenance.
Affected Lucky locations include stores in the Silicon Valley cities of San Jose, Fremont, Santa Clara, Milpitas, Mountain View, Redwood City, Foster City and San Carlos, as well as San Francisco, Daly City and Millbrae further up the San Francisco Peninsula and Hayward, El Cerrito and Alameda in the East Bay. A rigged card reader was also round at a Save Mart store in Watsonville, east of Santa Cruz.
"We are not aware nor have we been notified of any reports that customers' accounts were compromised," Lucky wrote in the notice. The company, however, is urging shoppers to monitor their credit-card statements in the event that their card information was taken.
Lucky said all of the tampered card readers were removed and steps were taken to "enhance security to every credit/debit card reader" in all 234 stores.
The widespread skimming scam comes on the heels of a massive bust in Manhattan that brought to justice three alleged crooks suspected of stealing nearly $300,000 from Chase Bank customers by putting card-stealing skimming devices on four Chase ATMs in and around Union Square.