How do you feel about your personal card information being work $5.00???

It amazes me how people respond to situations like the article posted below.

One Manager states "there is very little a restaurant owner can do to completely eliminate the possibility of crimes like these." That is not true. If a restaurant owner is to set up the Dine Fraud Free program in their establishment. Credit cards would not leave the customers hand, eliminating the opportunity for someone to skim credit cards.

McALLEN — The lunch rush at the South McAllen Olive Garden Italian Restaurant is often a hurried affair.

Waiters rush from kitchen to table with heaping plates of pasta, diners keep an eye on the clock in a rush to get back to work and at the end of their meals customers throw plastic on to receipt trays with little thought.

But after the indictment of one of the restaurant’s employees last month, some of the eatery’s patrons learned a hard lesson in keeping a closer eye on their cards.

A federal magistrate judge has issued an arrest warrant for a waitress who allegedly stole credit card information from dozens of diners.

Using a device she kept in her purse, 44-year-old Patricia Kaefer sold the pilfered financial information for $5 per card, the U.S. Secret Service said in court filings.

The practice — known as “skimming” — typically involves using a portable device to copy encoded information stored on the magnetic strip of a debit or credit card. Data required for purchases such as the card number and expiration date are stored in the machine and can be encoded on fake or cloned cards using a separate device.

Agents tracked down Kaefer after a handful of customers at the Olive Garden on the 200 block of West Expressway 83 reported unauthorized purchases on their accounts.

“Kaefer was determined to have processed a majority of the McAllen area victims’ credit card account numbers,” said a criminal complaint filed against her in March and unsealed last week.

When confronted, the waitress allegedly told agents she began skimming credit card information while working at another local restaurant. For months, she had taken a device the size of a cigarette lighter to work with her each day and swiped credit cards collected through her shift, the document states.

“Clearly, that’s not the type of core values our company embodies,” said Rich Jeffers, a spokesman for Orlando, Fla.-based Darden Restaurants, which owns the Olive Garden chain and others. “It’s certainly not something we condone.”

But Jerry Maddox — manager of the nearby Hooters of McAllen and a member of the Upper Valley Restaurant Association — said there is very little a restaurant owner can do to completely eliminate the possibility of crimes like these. Most, however, take every precaution to protect customers’ sensitive financial information, he said.

At his establishment, waiters swipe cards into a machine that never lets them see card numbers. A sign above the register reminds employees of the company’s credit card policies.

“We’ve got checks and balances to make sure that stuff is taken care of,” he said. “We take it very seriously here.”

As a restaurant diner it can be just as difficult to avoid falling victim to skimming schemes, said Dolores Salinas, president of the South Texas Office of the Better Business Bureau.

“You’re handing your card over to someone. They take it away from the table, and you have no control what’s going on,” she said. “You’re entering into a situation on blind faith.”

Customers could follow waiters to the register and watch them ring up the transaction, but Salinas doubts most would be willing to do that. Instead, she recommends keeping a very close eye on credit card statements and contesting any suspicious charges within 90 days for credit cards and 30 days for a debit card.

“Or if you are afraid that this might happen to you, you might just start paying cash,” she said.

Although Kaefer initially confessed, she is believed to have since fled the country, prosecutors said Monday. The Secret Service declined to identify how many people had been affected by her alleged scheme citing the ongoing investigation.

If found and convicted, Kaefer could face up to 15 years in prison.