Updated: July 31st 2026 - Added missing honor.
INTRODUCTION
This guide aims to cover most of everything related to Card Skimming, the 6th crime in Torn's Crimes 2.0 Early Access.
And yes I'm well aware this is the 5th one to release, apparently the 5th crime needed more time in the oven while this one was ready to go, so it was released earlier.

If you already know the basics just skip ahead, I'll try and keep everything organized for clarity's sake.
If you're just looking for advice on this crime, skip to the "Points Of Interest" section.

This is the fifth of my series of guides on Crimes 2.0, all other guides released to date:
[Crimes 2.0] Search For Cash: An in-depth guide
[Crimes 2.0] Bootlegging: An in-depth guide
[Crimes 2.0] Graffiti: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Shoplifting: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Burglary: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Pickpocketing: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Hustling: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Disposal: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Cracking: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Forgery: An In-Depth Guide
[Crimes 2.0] Scamming: An In-Depth Guide

[Crimes 2.0] Arson: An In-Depth Guide

GLOSSARY:
CS = Crime Skill, your skill at doing the crime, shown at the top of the crime page.
Unique = Unique find, marked with a star under the "ATTEMPT" button, can only be found once.
Crit = Critical failure, leads to loss of CS and sometimes items, sometimes life, sometimes prison time.
Card detail / Detail = Credit card information, obtained after skimming cards in a location.

FIRST STEPS (What you need to start)
Card skimming is composed of three sub-crimes: Installing card skimmers and spy cameras in one of eight locations to steal credit card information, collecting said skimmers and cameras, and selling the credit card information over the internet.

The crime has a bunch of items required to perform it, they're mostly easy to get and rarely get consumed. Besides the enhancer, all the following items are required to perform this crime.


Card skimmers, being the namesake of the crime, are required to steal unsuspecting individuals' credit card information. They get consumed whenever they're installed in a location, and are recovered once they're collected, along with any card details they collected. They can be bought in Mexico for $175 each. They can also be found searching the junkyard and as a unique find while searching the subway and graffiting the city center.


Spy cameras are also required to steal credit card information, and like skimmers, are consumed when installing in a location and recovered when collecting. They can be bought in the Super Store for $130 a piece, as well as found while searching the junkyard or shoplifting the Super Store.


A computer (or, alternatively, a laptop) is required to sell credit card information. They can be found while shoplifting the Super Store. They can also be bought in the Super Store for $1,350.


Duct Tape is the enhancer for this crime, it increases CE & CS gains by 5%. Some outcomes mention its usage, so it can be inferred that it also increases success rate, though there's no hard evidence for that. It can be found as a unique find while shoplifting in Bits 'N' Bobs.

INSTALL SKIMMER (The secret ingredient is crime)

Installing a skimmer is the first step for this crime. It costs 6 nerve and gives a consistently high amount of CS. It requires both card skimmers and spy cameras to perform, and those will be consumed upon each attempt.
Failures will lead to nothing, while crits will lead to losing one of each, as well as standard crit penalties.

You can place a maximum of 20 skimmers across all locations, after which you'll need to either recover them to free up space, or have them found and removed.

Skimmers are lost based on activity, meaning, the less active a player is, the more likely skimmers are to be lost, with players going inactive for long periods of time leading to the loss of most if not all of their installed skimmers.
Keep this in mind if going away for a long time, making sure to collect all your skimmers beforehand.

THE LOCATIONS
There's eight locations where card skimmers can be installed, some get card details faster, some are locked to certain skill levels.


Bus Station
Very slow, the rate at which card details are gathered is the slowest of the first four locations. Collects around 0.6 card details per hour on average.

Safety assessment: Very Safe
*Skimmers here are very unlikely to be found, losing just a few every week. Good location to leave and come back in a few weeks.

Subway Station
Second fastest location of the first four, collecting roughly 0.9 details on average every hour throughout the day. During high activity hours this rate increases to around 1/hour, and during low activity hours it lowers to roughly 0.8/hour.
Skims done over time seem to be affected by player activity, just like Search For Cash, with high activity being around noon/afternoon TCT, and low activity being around evening and early morning TCT.

Safety assessment: Minor Risk
*Skimmers in this location are rarely found, around one per day with 20 installed on average.

College Campus
Fastest location of the initial four, collecting around 1.1 details an hour.

Safety assessment: Moderate Risk
*Skimmers here are fairly likely to be discovered, losing around 3 every day with 20 installed on average.

Post Office
Second slowest location of the initial four, collecting roughly 0.75 details per hour on average.

Safety assessment: Safe
*Skimmers in this location are unlikely to be found, taking a few days for 1 out of 20 to be discovered.

Gas Station
Unlocked at CS25.
Skimming rate is the worst, around 0.4 details/hour. Date and time of day seem to have no bearing on skimming rate.

Safety assessment: Safest
*Skimmers are extremely unlikely to be found here, sometimes taking days or even weeks for a single one out of 20 to be discovered.

Airport Terminal
Unlocked at CS50.
Skimming rate is good, around 1.3 details/hour.
Time of day/activity seem to have an effect on skimming rate, like subway, where around noon and afternoon skimming rate is the best while at night time it drops to around the same as college. Further testing required.

Safery assessment: High Risk.
*Skimmers here are very likely to be discovered, losing between 4 to 8 every day on average.

Casino Lobby
Unlocked at CS75.
Skimming rate is excellent, around 2.15 details/hour. Reaching 250 details for the merit would take around 4-5 days.

Safety assessment: Very High Risk.
*Skimmers here are extremely likely to be discovered, losing over half of all skimmers installed when going inactive for a short period of time.

Bank Branch
Unlocked at CS100.
Skimming rate is very good, around 1.7 details/hour, somewhat at the mid-point between Casino and Airport.

Safety assessment: Pending
*Skimmers here appear to be found at the same rate as airport skimmers. More data is required to confirm this.

Regarding safety:
Both installing and recovering carry the same risk, further testing is required to determine whether amount of details has an effect of failure rate, and if so how significant it is.
Location also has no bearing on safety when installing or recovering..
Most glaring difference between all locations is the chances of skimmers being found, which differs greatly between locations. Skimmers only seem to get found when players go inactive, whether by sleeping or by flying, so riskier locations are preferrable for active players.


My advice:
Locations beside college, airport and casino, if you're an active player, are simply not worth doing. The rate at which details are collected in these locations is so high that as long as you prevent them being found it's not worth considering the other locations.

If you're less active or fly a lot though, going with places like subway or post office is a viable alternative, since skimmers in those locations are generally less likely to be detected.

Also, if you're cycling skimmers daily to max skill level fast, consider swapping to safer locations when going to bed or when you won't be online for a long period of time, so as to avoid losing a lot of your skimmers. Doing airport throughout the day when you can be online regularly then swapping to subway when going to sleep seems like a good option, even more so with casino.

If you wanna do this crime parallel to other crimes: I strongly advise you to leave your skimmers in safe or relatively safe locations. You can leave them there for weeks while you work on other crimes, and only start collecting once you have hundreds of details stored. This is the most efficient path to leveling this crime, and also the best if you're doing other crimes as well as this one.


CRIME SKILL GAIN
CS gain from this subcrime in particular is constant: No matter where the skimmer is placed, CS obtained will always be the same, with the only factor affecting it being the crime progression bonus and the standing crime chain bonus.

RECOVER SKIMMER (Patience is key)

Once a skimmer is placed, it'll appear in a list at the bottom of the crime page, sorted by time of installation.
Installed skimmers collect card details over time, the speed varying according to location as stated previously. The longer the skimmers are left in place, the more details will be collected, the more details collected at once, the more CS is gained at once.

Clicking the keypad logo at the left of the "RECOVER" button shows the exact events that occurred with a skimmer, from installation to recovery or removal. The time between these events is pretty inconsistent but the averages are somewhat predictable, as mentioned in the previous section.


Once a skimmer is recovered, both the card skimmer and the spy camera are returned to the user.

NEGATIVE OUTCOMES
Upon a failed attempt to recover a skimmer (NOT a crit!), the ATM will be temporarily blocked for a period of 10-30 minutes, forcing one to wait before another attempt to recover the skimmer is possible.


On the other hand, if the skimmer is left alone for too long or you get unlucky, it might get detected by the authorities or other malicious individuals, leading to its loss.


CRIME SKILL GAIN
CS gain when recovering a skimmer increases according to the amount of details in the skimmer. The more details it holds, the more CS you gain once you recover it, so waiting to recover it seems to be the best option for ideal CS gains.

The increase on CS gain based on early observations appear to be around 15.5% per detail stored, with roughly 7 details being as efficient as installing in terms of nerve spent for skill gain, and 13 details making gains from recovery equal those of installation. Consider this the breaking point for best efficiency, if you have the time to spare.

There does NOT seem to be a cap to CS gain increase relative to details collected, increasing consistently all the way to 250 details, maybe even further.
Collecting skimmers with hundreds of details can lead to increasing multiple levels at once.

CRITICAL FAILURE
On a critical failure, both the card skimmer and spy camera used will be permanently lost, as well as any details that were stored in the skimmer.
One will also face jail times between 1 and 3 hours. Further analysis is required to confirm if location is relevant.

Regarding CS loss, unlike CS gain this one from tests performed so far appears to be consistent, that is, no matter the amount of details stored, the CS lost after a crit will be the same.
Further analysis would be required to confirm this, for now only circumstantial evidence during CS analysis was recorded, as follows:
CS41 - COLLEGE - 13 Details - CRIT (-160%)
CS44 - COLLEGE - 7 Details - CRIT (-140%)

While there is a difference of about 20%, it's so small compared to the difference in expected gain that it can very well be chalked up to the difference in skill level.

SELL CARD DETAILS (Here comes the money)

You've installed an illegal skimmer, stole credit card information, and recovered it successfully, good job, now it's time for the final step.
Selling card details is straightforward, all card details currently stored will be sold at once, giving an amount of money per card sold and some CS.

The only requirement for this crime is having either a Personal Computer or a Laptop.

One can crit while attempting a sale, leading to the loss of all card details on top of standard crit penalties.

Location where the details were sourced has no bearing on sell value nor CS gain.

SALE VALUE
The amount of money made on a sale varies greatly, depending on the amount sold the minimum and maximum sale value changes.

1-100: Sales range from $100 to $160 per detail
101-1,000: Sales range from $130 to $190 per detail
1,001-9,999: Sales range from $160 to $220 per detail
10,000+: Sales range from $190 to $250 per detail

*These values are based on observation alone, more data is required to confirm this with certainty.

CRIME SKILL GAIN
Overall, the CS gain from selling is very small, roughly half that of installing a skimmer.
The CS gain does NOT seem to be affected by the amount of details sold, with amounts in the thousands giving the same amount of CS as selling a couple dozen.

POINTS OF INTEREST (General advice and trivia)
First, the elephant in the room: This crime has no unique finds. Whether they'll be added in the future or not is currently unknown, but this is so far the only crime to have no unique finds obtainable.

Given it's lack of uniques and that it's categorized as a fraud crime like arsons in 1.0, this crime's only "draw" would be the two honor bars, and the possible profits that can be made with the crime, which are still undetermined but are looking to be on the 200k-500k/day range.

INCREASING SKILL LEVEL
There's three ways to go about this, depending on your nerve, activity and how patient you are.

1) Install => Recover => Repeat (The fast but expensive route)
Most nerve-intensive but also the fastest way to increase CS, the CS gains from installing are some of the best so skipping the wait and collecting with no details is a viable strategy. This lets you rush to higher, possibly better locations, but of course requires plenty of boosters.
Recovering a skimmer with no details nets about 1/3rd the CS compared to installing, effectively being 50% less nerve-efficient than installing, based on nerve spent to CS gained ratio.

2) Install => Wait 6-12hrs => Recover => Repeat (The slow but efficient route)
Takes longer but also is more nerve-efficient. The CS gain from recovering increases based on amount of details in the skimmer, so 6-7 details are required for recovery to equal the efficiency of installing, being the breaking point for recovery.
Any additional details will further increase CS gains, possibly equaling or even overtaking the CS gain from installing once reaching 13 details, making recovery 50% more efficient than installing for CS gains.

3) Install => Wait 2-3 weeks => Recover => Repeat (The slowest, most efficient path)
Takes the longest to increase your skill level, but is by far the most efficient path in terms of nerve required to increase skill level. For this, it is strongly advise to place your skimmers in a safe location like post office or bus station, so as to avoid losing them as much as possible.
This path is the best if you're doing a different crime or chasing merits in old crimes.
Since CS gain increases linearly the more details are collected at once, you can recover whenever you feel like it (some like the 200 mark, others go all the way to 500).

In a nutshell:
- Selling won't help you to gain CS, at all. Don't bother doing it, or do it once you have over 10k details stored.
- If you have lots of nerve just spam install and remove, or cycle them every few hours.
- If you wanna be efficient, install/recover in the morning and at night, using a minimum of natural regen and booster cooldown.
- If you wanna do a different crime, install in a safe location and check back in a few weeks.

Installing a skimmer gives you CS equivalent to recovering a skimmer with 13 details. Make of that what you will.

STATE OF EMERGENCY
When a dirty bomb is armed, both the Bus Station and the Subway Station are locked down: No skimmers can be installed or removed from these locations.

It is currently unknown if other locations will have the same restrictions, though it can be guessed that the Airport Terminal will be as well, given the restricted airspace during state of emergency.
It's also worth noting that even if the locations are locked down, the skimmers will continue working and details will continue to increase. It's unknown if this is a bug.

THE MERITS
Just like all other crimes so far, this crime also has two honor bars native to it, and all the medals pertaining its category.

Reaching CS100 will grant one the King PIN honor bar.


Recovering a skimmer with 250 details will grant one the Zero Liability honor bar.

Best bet for getting this honor bar if you don't care too much about this crime, would be setting up twenty skimmers in college campus and leaving them be for about two weeks, only replacing those that get found.

If you care even less, put them in Gas Station and let them sit there for a month or even longer, no need to replace found skimmers in that instance, just set and forget.

Selling 10,000 details at once will grant one the Line of Credit honor bar.

Simply accumulating details over a long period of time before selling is enough to get it. For minimal nerve expenditure, Gas Station is best.

Finally, all attempts at this crime, regardless of nerve spent, are considered fraud crimes, sharing this category with Hustling and Scamming.

THE PROFIT
This crime, for a crime that's pretty much a leave and forget kind of crime, is theoretically profitable over longer periods of time compared to bootlegging. Unlike bootlegging, the skimmers work whether you're paying attention or not, though risking being found the longer they're left alone.

The most efficient location based on current data, the Casino Lobby, collects roughly 50 details per day, at an average rate of $200 per skimmer that's $10,000/day per skimmer, 200k/day with all skimmers in place. With data on the Bank Branch now known, the passive income obtainable from this crime is somewhat alright? Nothing stellar but not quite terrible either.

Something to consider though, is risk: The faster card details are collected in a location, the more likely are skimmers to be detected, losing all details collected. If you feel like checking your skimmers once or twice a week is more down your alley, then leaving skimmers in safer locations is a viable option.

The amount received upon a sale varies according to defined breakpoints, so far identified as 100, 1,000 and 10,000 details at once. Average sale value increases by $30 once a breakpoint is passed, starting at $130.

THE NUMBERS (Nerdy stuff ahead)
There used to be a "location risk breakdown" thingy here, but it was scrapped since data show that, regardless of where you place/recover your skimmer, failure and crit rates are all about the same, and data regarding loss of skimmers was not tracked, so you'll have to take my word for it regarding safety. Apologies for that.

LOCATION SKIMMING EFFICIENCY BREAKDOWN
Some locations obtain more details over time than others. This is an attempt at showing an average of this card skimming rate broken down by location.

Bear in mind that some locations' skimming rate varies according to time of day, airport and subway in particular. The average rate for the most part considers samples throughout the day, so it should be accurate for longer periods but may vary for shorter ones.

For the record, this breakdown is done completely manually since this data isn't tracked by the logs, sadly, so sample size is smaller and based on observation alone. I will update it in due time, once more samples and ideally some data from the bank is obtained.

UPDATE: The cutoff mark for samples was raised to 12hrs as an attempt to increase accuracy, and values like median and standard deviation have been added so as to provide a better assessment on which location is better. Thanks Gandalf!

SALE INCOME DISTRIBUTION
As mentioned above, income made when selling varies significantly according to the amount of details sold. An increase in the order of magnitude leads to an increase of minimum and maximum sale value.

Table made using 161 sale logs with different amounts, low sample size may impact accuracy but for the most part this should be in the ballpark.

In summary, accumulating details leads to an increase on money made on average, so waiting to sell at 1k or 10k details is a good idea if you're looking to maximize income. There are no tests for 100k details, and frankly getting those done may take months from now, but it might lead to further increases. Something to consider.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I... like this crime. I like it more than Bootlegging, about as much as Graffiti, but less than SFC or Shoplifting.
This crime is completely designed to be done parallel to other crimes in the long term, so set up a few skimmers and move on to the next crime, or go back to another crime that you haven't completed, or go find the uniques you haven't bothered to get yet. If you go for the most efficient path for this crime, you'll end up with a lot of nerve to spare, so doing other crimes while waiting seems to be the intended route.

The income as of now is still undetermined but based on current observations for the first few locations, income can start at 90k/day with 20 skimmers going at it simultaneously, with this amount potentially increasing on the more advanced locations. We will see how efficient this crime can be in the coming weeks, but I at least am looking forward to potentially earning 400k-500k per day with a ton of skimmers set up, since that would be a pretty huge sum of money for a new player.

Fifth guide in the Crimes 2.0 Guides series, managed to get a lot of very interesting data early on thanks to some helpful individuals, including most CS-related analyses. While it lacks the most fun part for me (N U M B E R S), I still feel like it's a good breakdown of this crime as a whole. I'm always happy knowing this guide potentially helped you at all or taught you a thing or two about card skimming.

DATA GATHERING (OVER!)
Data gathering for this crime has been closed, since there are no further additions that I can think of. Thanks to everyone who contributed with their logs, whether for money or goodwill!

CREDITS
Finally, a shoutout to all who contributed in the making of this guide, as well as those who financed this and previous projects.

Providers of research funds:
kelfi: 11x Donator Pack
onlelonely: 10x FHC
MrFancyPants: $100,000,000
Gem: 25x Bottle of Moonshine
Kamkool: $50,000,000
Invert: $10,000,000, 1x Xanax, 1x FHC, 20x Bottle of Mistletoe Madness
Sinvetic: 2x FHC, Quran Script : Ubay Ibn Ka'b
BigDaddyLuvsU: $20,000,000, 3x Drug Pack
Hamid448: $10,000,000, 3x E-DVDs, 1x Drug Pack, 1x Six Pack of Alcohol
RatstaR: 1x Donator Pack
Jackass_420: $20,000,000
Lidia: $15,000,000
illum: 1x FHC
Gandalf: 1x FHC
hugeknight: 10x Lottery Voucher
maimunah: $10,000,000
Paul_Atreides: $10,000,000
Lexcifer: 10x Xanax
something: $7,500,000
Giovanni: 3x Six-Pack of Alcohol
MissMary: $1,000,000, 1x Drug Pack
Tuit: $5,000,000
Chimken: 1x Drug Pack
Dapper_Tramp: 10x Bottle of Wicked Witch
-Behemoth: 3x Xanax
Timoteo32: 1x Six-Pack of Alcohol
badmagicks: 1x High-Speed Drive
Green_Babz: 1x Can of Santa Shooters
TheBonebreaker: $1,000,000
bcla7: 1x Lottery Voucher
Anonymous: $28,000,000


Research collaborators:
Fetheryhorse6
Tuit
Bruichladdich


All contributors:
Nutburger, Jamas, Ice, Hamster, bluemanrocks, Darrellia, Hallow, Gab, stagiestpizza, Aekan, Inane, SimbaJack, Hamid448, acesoron, Prynce, Lithdren, Obsession, Noah07, LilDood, the people of Omni and HeLa, and the people on the wiki thread for Card Skimming.

All in the name of science.