ATM scams on the rise: Philadelphia police find 'trap doors' installed across city

Skimmers, 'trap doors' installed at ATMs across Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Police Department is warning about rise in ATM scams, featuring card skimmers and "cash trap doors," that lead people to believe the machines are broken or out of money.

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Police Department is warning about a rise in ATM scams in recent weeks, after finding skimmers and other devices at multiple machines across the city.

What we know:

Officials said that since March 15, police have found "trap doors" installed on ATMs in nine locations across the city, in addition to typical card skimmer devices.

Officials said the trap doors are being installed on a specific type of machine that has a roll-down door.

"Usually, with this type of machine, the roll door would roll down and you can take your money out," said Capt. Robert McKeever with the Major Crimes Unit. "This cash trap basically stops that. So the roll door still rolls down, but the customer hears the [machine] rolling and they can't get the roll door to go down, so they think the ATM is broken, or the [machine] might be out of money."

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McKeever said officers have found the devices at different locations, including banks, dollar stores and mom-and-pop shops. 

The trap doors are mostly being installed at bank ATMs on the weekends, McKeever said, they believe, because the branches are closed, and issues with the machines won't be addressed until the following Monday.

Dig deeper:

Police on Wednesday released footage from one of the machines, showing the suspect installing the trap door.

What you can do:

If you run into a machine with a roll-down door that won't dispense money, police say not to try and force the door open, because the machine may actually just be broken.

Instead, police recommend monitoring your accounts to see if money you thought wasn't dispensed was taken out.