Amador County – A long-time Sutter Creek business, Jack’s Chevron filling station in Sutter Creek is taking a proactive approach to thwarting high-tech credit card and identity theft.

He said it is the “latest and greatest method to prevent credit card information theft,” and he imagined other companies or banks in Amador County would be doing the upgrade, “to combat all the theft that is going on.”

He said he has not heard of any local reports in Amador County, but “in the Valley it’s a common thing going on.” He said “once they figure it out there, then it floats out to the outlying areas,” and the Foothills.

He said Jack’s Chevron was not part of several reported local credit card “skimming” incidents, as the identity thefts are called. And the new software will prevent that from happening at the old stalwart gas station, at the corner of Highway 49 and Ridge Road, a 62-year-old company.

“We’ve been on this corner for 20 years,” Brusatori said. “We’ve actually been in business since 1949, me and my dad.” His father is Jack Brusatori senior, who recently passed away.

Brusatori said it blocks the ability of illegally installed remote readers that have been used to access card information, and remotely send it to thieves, for identity and credit card thefts. The software will assure safe encryption each time the card is used at the station.

Jack’s Chevron will make the software upgrade through Gilbarco, directly through the station’s machines. Brusatori said it will assure that customers will have “security on the machine, so they can’t steal the identity off of the card.”

The software will be installed next Thursday, March 24, and the pumps will be down for about half a day during installation.

Brusatori said Jack’s Chevron also has new pump nozzles with “stay on” filling devices. For several months, they didn’t have the stay-on device, while they were going through a pump retro-fit stage. The pump safety lock is required by the state, and it allows people to pump without having to stand and hold the pump handle. The new “stay filling” pumps were installed about 2 months ago.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.