Kentucky Department of Agriculture officials say they are ramping up efforts to stop scammers from stealing consumers' credit card numbers at gas pumps.
For the first time, inspectors who normally check pumps for gas quality and quantity will now also be looking for small electronic devices called skimmers that capture data from bank cards.
Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles says the department's 15 gas station inspectors will check all 60,000 Kentucky gas pumps for evidence of skimming by examining the inside of the panels where consumers scan their bank cards.
An estimated $3 billion globally has been lost to such fraud.
