Local ATM’s compromised

Alert, Alert. This past year there has been much written about the bank fraud here in Guatemala with visitors using ATM cards from the US, Canada and other countries. Literally millions of dollars were stolen from accounts all over the world after using ATM’s in Antigua at many of the local banks, especially the BAC bank.

This week, November 15th and 16th, the BAC bank has experienced bank fraud from local ATM’s in Antigua where literally every account using their ATM was emptied fraudulently from people having local accounts and using local Guatemalan bank cards. We were among them and had our account literally cleaned out in a day. The BAC bank is promising to look into this problem and promises to reimburse their customers, but only after 35 business days, about 2 months. Unfortunately, many of their customers are hard working Guatemalans who cannot wait for two months to be reimbursed for funds stolen from their accounts.

Just be careful, and for the immediate future, know that the BAC ATM’s are compromised and that using them will probably create a loss of the funds in your account where ever that may be. There were literally hundreds of people lined up all day Wednesday, Nov. 16th, claiming that their accounts had been fraudulently emptied. This is not a matter of “PINs’ being witnessed, but electronically cloning cards and having access to your accounts when you use the BAC ATM.

(submitted by M.L and W.T., U.S. citizens living in La Antigua)