Scores of shoppers at Burnham-On-Sea’s Tesco supermarket may have fallen victim to a cash machine scam in which thousands of pounds has been taken from bank accounts.
It was confirmed to Burnham-On-Sea.com on Monday afternoon by Tesco that criminals installed a so-called ‘skimming’ device to the cash point at the Love Lane store (pictured) last week in order to steal the credit card numbers and PINs of customers, then remove cash from their accounts.
The problem came to light when visitors to Burnham-On-Sea.com’s discussion forum posted messages in recent days saying they had fallen victim to the scam.
Stuart Neil, spokesman for Tesco, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We are aware of a skimming device being used at our Burnham store in recent days.”
“Anti-skimming devices are being fitted here this week as part of our national roll-out and it’s therefore unfortunate that this has happened at this time. The anti-skimming devices will make our machines among the most secure in the area.”
“We don’t how many of our customers have been affected on this occasion – it could be a handful or many more – so we would advise anyone that thinks they may have been affected to urgently get in contact with their bank.”
Fears that a cashpoint at the Nationwide Building Society in Burnham’s High Street had also been targeted appear to be unwarranted.
A spokeswoman told Burnham-On-Sea.com she was confident that the Nationwide machine was safe to use. “The problem is connected with Tesco’s ATM, not ours,” said spokeswoman Katie Harver of Nationwide.
