Credit card skimmer found at Walmart ATM in west Harris County

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Here's a warning and good advice for anyone who uses an ATM.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office says a skimming device was found outside a Walmart Supercenter.

The device was on a Woodforest bank ATM outside the store on Highway 6 and Westpark Dr. It's not known how many customers may have been potentially impacted.

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Skimming devices are used by criminals to secretly capture credit and debit card data from unsuspecting users. Once the credit/debit data is captured, the data is downloaded and then used for fraudulent transactions.

The data can be sold, immediately used for online purchases or re-encoding and creation of counterfeit credit/debit cards.

While there's no fail safe way to completely prevent data from being transmitted to skimming devices, There are steps you can take to reduce your risk.

Click here to learn how to spot a skimmer and avoid identity theft