BOCA RATON, Fla., March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, there has been an uptrend of identity theft scams involving PIN pads. Criminals are switching out vendors' PIN pads with their own, and then coming back to collect their phony pads. Once they have their phony pads back, they extract the private account information of those customers who had the misfortune of using them.

To prevent this type of identity theft, vendors must proactively guard their PIN pads against tampering. Vendors that heavily rely upon cashless payment systems can do this with customized and/or mountable PIN pads, which scammers cannot readily duplicate and replace with phonies.

Customized PIN Padshelp vendors prevent identity theft and provide their customers with easy-to-use cashless payment devices. Since PIN pads can feature a wide variety of firmware and hardware options, they are adaptable to most cashless payment systems and can be designed to indicate the functions of a certain vendor's payment system or even its color scheme.

Consequently,Customized PIN pads are incredibly difficult for a criminal to replicate, which deters tampering and identity theft. PIN pads that have been customized for surface-mounting are particularly safe, since criminals cannot readily remove these units from a store. Where, then, should vendors look for customized PIN pads? Electrone Americas Ltd., Co., which specializes in developing custom PIN pads, is the company to start with.

Electrone's customized PIN pads support multiple cashless payment system applications and can be outfitted to include a magnetic stripe reader; fingerprint reader; or smart card reader. Features such as these help prevent identity theft by requiring additional identity verification. The PIN pads' key tops and legends are customizable, so vendors can implement unique PIN pads that not only can scammers not replicate for the purposes of identity theft, but that streamline their customers' payment process.

For extra security against identity theft, Electrone PIN pads can be designed for surface mounting, which safeguards against their removal by identity thieves. As an additional bonus, these units have the option to be equipped with wipe-clean membranes, and even metal enclosures. Versatile and resilient, Electrone PIN pads are being used by an Illinois medical institution in order to comply with rigid state laws that force medical centers to protect their customers from identity theft.