United States Secret Service warns of skimming crimes How Skimming Crimes Happen According to the United States Secret Service website, “Skimming incidents involve criminal groups installing hidden electronic devices that record cardholder information at ATMs and Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals. These incidents occur frequently at popular merchants, such as pharmacies, gas stations, and grocery stores. Criminals use the stolen (skimmed) debit or credit card data by re-encoding it on other cards fo