Investigation ongoing into suspected card skimming affecting 400 TwinStar customers in Lewis County

Law enforcement believe a possible fraud situation that affected around 400 TwinStar Credit Union members — primarily in rural Lewis County — may have been caused by a card skimmer placed at a gas pump.

Chief Dusty Breen with the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office said the investigation is still open, but that the explanation is a likely one.

Matt Devlin, chief marketing officer for TwinStar, said last week that whatever the specific threat was is no longer active. He said he was pleased with how quickly TwinStar responded to the threat when instances of fraud started cropping up.

“I’m pretty proud of our group of people in our fraud area,” he said, adding that all affected customers were contacted and provided the ability to receive re-issued cards. They will also be reimbursed for the fraud, said Devlin.

Breen said it’s possible the customer’s information was gathered as long as a month before fraudulent transactions started cropping up. He said a deputy with LCSO had previously worked in information technology at a credit union. The deputy is working in conjunction with fraud prevention staff at TwinStar, said Breen.

As a result of the investigation, Breen said deputies learned the skimming device was likely somewhere in the Onalaska area. While nothing has been proven to be absolute, he said it was likely a result of a skimming device.

Breen said high-tech fraudsters can use devices to skim information from cards baring specific VIN numbers — meaning they can target the customers of specific financial institutions.

Breen said that might be why TwinStar customers seemed to bear the brunt of the fraud. Devlin said the reason also might be that TwinStar is the largest institution in that particular area.

“The reason is seems like a TwinStar situation is we have a lot of members in some of the outlying areas, Onalaska being one of them,” he said.