An investigation after the bust of a Chinese woman at the Sands casino in Bethlehem, Pa. has uncovered a large organized countrywide casino scam targeting poker and casino players withdrawing cash from their bank accounts at casino ATMs. And it appears that the scammers are all Chinese women!
The way the casino scam goes down is that the Chinese woman quickly approaches the person withdrawing cash at the ATM, often an older person, and kindly offers her help. The fact that the scammer is an innocuous-looking Asian woman helps make the victim trust her. At the opportune moment, the Chinese woman grabs the victim's credit or ATM card and reinserts it into the ATM, creating a "double recognition" of the access which the Chinese woman then uses to complete a second transaction by entering the victim's PIN and withdrawing cash, immediately after the first transaction is complete. The victim never knows what hits him and simply thanks the Chinese woman for her generous help.
Casino security investigators report that the success rate of the scam is 70% and the 30% failure rate is only people refusing her offers of assistance. Apparently, a surveillance officer at the Pennsylvania casino recognized one Chinese woman hanging around the casino's ATMs a bit too often and caught on to her casino scam. It has now been uncovered that similar casino scams run by Chinese women have been occurring at an alarming rate at Las Vegas, California, midwest and Atlantic City casinos.
My advice: Anyone offering to help you at a casino ATM should be considered a casino scam artist.
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