BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2307
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
2307 (Chau) - As Amended April 11, 2016
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|Policy |Privacy and Consumer |Vote:|11 - 0 |
|Committee: |Protection | | |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
Yes
SUMMARY:
This bill establishes a uniform reporting protocol for service
agents alerted to the presence of a credit card skimming device
or who discover a suspicious device during the course of a
AB 2307
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repair of a weighing and measuring device. Specifically, this
bill:
1)Requires a county sealer who receives information or evidence
indicating that any weighing or measuring device under the
county sealer's jurisdiction has been altered to facilitate
fraudulent activity to coordinate with the appropriate law
enforcement authorities in investigating and prosecuting the
fraudulent activity.
2)Requires a service agency or service agent, upon discovering
an altering device, to report to the county sealer within 24
hours and, if the service agency or service agent has
possession of the device, to surrender the device to the
county sealer or local law enforcement within 24 hours of
discovery.
FISCAL EFFECT:
Negligible state fiscal impact. The bill contains a potential
reimbursable mandate for the reporting requirement, but county
sealers indicate that this cost is minor. It is unlikely a
county would submit a claim to the Commission on State Mandates.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. This bill is intended to help prevent credit card
fraud and identity theft by requiring service agents who
AB 2307
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repair gas pumps and other measuring devices to report and
turn over credit card skimming devices within 24 hours to
their county sealer, or law enforcement.
According to the author's office, "Across the country,
criminal organizations are using skimmer devices to steal
money from unsuspecting victims using gas pumps, ATMs, or
other credit card vending machines. In 2015, there was an
inspection conducted at 33 gas stations in Los Angeles and
Ventura Counties, by personnel from the Los Angeles County
Agricultural Commissioner's office, numerous federal and local
law enforcement agencies, an energy corporation, and a
financial services corporation, which found ten credit card
skimmers located at eight gas stations. Unfortunately, there
is no uniform process for dealing with these devices when they
are discovered by a service agent in California. Reports from
county sealers throughout California indicate that service
agents often dispose skimmers into the garbage or hand them
over to gas station attendants instead of reporting the
problem."
2)Background. County sealers of weights and measures are
responsible for ensuring all commercial scaling and volumetric
measuring devices are providing accurate readings, so
customers pay the appropriate amount for the product they are
purchasing. One of the most common devices sealers test
annually is gas station pumps. If the county sealer determines
that a gas pump is not providing an accurate reading, then it
is removed from operation until an authorized service agent
can repair the pump. According to the California Agricultural
Commissioners and Sealers Association, service agents have
been encountering a growing number of credit card skimmers in
the course of repairing gas pumps.
Unlike retails stores, which typically have cashiers at
point-of-sale, gas stations typically have self-service pumps
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making them harder to monitor to prevent tampering. In
addition, the oil industry received a two-year extension to
October 2017 to comply with new federal regulations that began
requiring all other retailers to install chip enabled credit
card machines by October 2015.
Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)
319-2081