In a News 12 exclusive, an illegal skimmer was found on a credit card machine in East Flatbush.
Surveillance video given to News 12 showed 75-year-old Jessie Brown at the Caribbean Meat Market, when it appeared that a piece of the credit card machine popped off.
Brown’s daughter, Kalesha James, said that she told her father to go to the store because it was the last place he shopped before $324 was stolen from his EBT account.
“I told [Brown] to just shake the machine, gently shake the machine,” said James. “If something comes off, then that’s how we know that [a scammer is] scamming him, there’s a skimmer on it.”
The family said this was the second incident since December - but the first time they reported it to police.
“It’s sad,” said James. “This is a low-income neighborhood, and it should not be happening to the people here.”
Police confirmed to News 12 that a skimmer was discovered last week at the Rutland Road location.
“We didn’t know that the piece was there on the machine, and then we didn’t know either how long it was there,” said Nicholas Bueno, owner of the Caribbean Meat Market.
Bueno claimed that this was the first skimming incident they’ve had in their 14 years of business.
“[Customers] should be checking their bank account if anything happened in the last few months and let us know,” said Bueno.
He also warned other business owners to be on alert and check their credit card machines.
“We’re going to be on top of this now to be sure that everything will be OK,” said Bueno.
It was unclear who put the skimmer on the machine or how long it was there.