TINLEY PARK, Ill. (STNG) - A would-be thief climbed to the roof of a Tinley Park gas station this week and disabled a credit card satellite transmitter by wrapping foil around it -- a low-tech way to rip off a high-tech system.
With the computer connection between the gas station and the credit card company down, the thief apparently hoped to charge items with an invalid credit card the old-fashioned way -- having employees make an imprint of the card and then send the charge in later. By then, the thief would be gone.
But not only was the transmitter foiled, so was the scam.
“At this point I haven’t lost any money yet,” said Glen Gorman, who owns the Shell at 17101 S. Harlem Ave. “I won’t say I won’t in the next few days.”
Someone saw a person on the roof of the gas station about 9:30 p.m. Monday and called Tinley Park police. When police squad cars zoomed in, the would-be thief was nowhere to be found, and Gorman didn’t know what the officers were talking about. But around midnight an employee noticed the store’s network was disconnected.
“That happens sometimes during storms, so we didn’t think much of it,” Gorman said.
When Gorman got to work Tuesday morning, some of the gas pumps wouldn’t accept credit cards. Gorman called a Shell hotline and learned that thieves on the West Coast had been wrapping foil around satellite dishes to disrupt transactions.
“It dawned on me there was someone on my roof,” Gorman said.
An employee climbed up and found foil around the satellite dish. He took it off and the network started working, Gorman said.
Shell said Thursday that the company was aware of the foil capers and was training gas station owners to watch out for thieves. A gas station operator in Cicero reported a similar foil incident Tuesday.
E-Mail Story
Print Story
