Close to 600 Winnipeggers were told their debit cards were recently compromised. Of the hundreds who had their cards skimmed, dozens had money taken out of their accounts.

Meghan Athavale is one of the Assiniboine Credit Union members affected.

"On Sunday, I tried to make a bank transfer through online banking so I could top up our payroll account and it didn't work," she said.

The credit union told Athavale her personal account had withdrawals totaling $300 from Quebec and Malaysia, places she had not been to visit.

"I'd like to go to Malaysia but I certainly wasn't there over the weekend," she said.

Assiniboine Credit Union's software detected irregularities and narrowed down the hundreds of cards affected to a single Interac machine in Winnipeg, said officials.

"We contacted all our members that might have been compromised and asked them to please check their accounts, that the balances were correct and that everything was authorized," said Al Morin from ACU.

Risk management expert Michael Legary said he sees the skimming activity regularly.

"The attacker puts the device inside the machine. For an end-user to (identify) if there's an issue, it's quite difficult. Quite often it's an add-on that looks like it should've been there in the first place," said Legary, adding some portable hand-held devices can also be compromised. 

To avoid becoming a victim, the Canadian Bankers Association offers a number of tips, including using the chip option for cards or swiping them yourself, along with hiding your PIN when you enter it and watching your transaction history, including reporting any unusual activity to your financial institution.

They also advise changing your PIN often.

Along with Assiniboine Credit Union, clients from other financial institutions were also affected. Those hit by the skimming scams have been assured their money will be returned within a matter of days.

Winnipeg police continue to investigate the skimming scams. Officials did not disclose the name of the location which had the compromised machine.

- with a report from CTV's Rajeev Dhir