Torn Card Skimming Guide: Best Locations, Skill Rates and Honor Bars
Card Skimming is the odd one out in Crimes 2.0. It has no unique finds at all, which makes it the only crime in the tree with nothing to collect. What it does have is a genuinely different rhythm: you install hardware, walk away, and come back to a pile of stolen card details that convert into large one-shot skill gains.
That waiting is the whole crime. Install and immediately recover and you burn nerve for mediocre returns. Leave twenty skimmers sitting for a fortnight and a single recovery can push you up several skill levels. This guide covers what each location collects per hour, how risky each one is, and the three viable ways to play it depending on how active you are.
The three sub-crimes
Card Skimming splits into three actions, and they are not equally worth your nerve.
| Action | Cost | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Install skimmer | 6 nerve | Places hardware. Consistently high crime skill, consumes a skimmer and a spy camera |
| Recover skimmer | Nerve | Returns your hardware plus stored details. Skill scales with details held |
| Sell card details | Nerve | Converts details to cash. Minimal skill gain |
What you need
Four items, all cheap and mostly reusable. Skimmers and cameras are consumed on install and returned on recovery, so you only truly lose them to failures and detection.
| Item | Cost | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Card Skimmer | $175 | Mexico; also junkyard searches, subway unique, City Center graffiti unique |
| Spy Camera | $130 | Super Store; also junkyard searches and Super Store shoplifting |
| Computer or Laptop | $1,350 | Super Store, or shoplifting the Super Store. Required to sell details |
| Duct Tape | Unique find | Shoplifting Bits 'n' Bobs. Enhancer: +5% CE and CS gains |
The eight locations
Locations differ in two ways that matter: how fast they collect card details, and how likely your skimmers are to be discovered. Those two things run in opposite directions, which is the central trade-off of the crime.
| Location | Unlock | Details per hour | Risk | Losses with 20 installed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gas Station | CS 25 | 0.4 | Safest | Days or weeks to lose one |
| Bus Station | Open | 0.6 | Very safe | A few per week |
| Post Office | Open | 0.75 | Safe | A few days to lose one |
| Subway Station | Open | 0.9 | Minor risk | About one per day |
| College Campus | Open | 1.1 | Moderate risk | About three per day |
| Airport Terminal | CS 50 | 1.3 | High risk | Four to eight per day |
| Bank Branch | CS 100 | 1.7 | High (unconfirmed) | Similar to Airport |
| Casino Lobby | CS 75 | 2.15 | Very high risk | Over half lost during short inactivity |
Understanding the risk
The safety ratings only describe one thing: how likely skimmers are to be found. Install and recovery failure rates do not change by location.
Skimmers are lost to your inactivity, not to the location alone
Discovery is tied to how active you are. Sleeping, flying or simply being offline is when skimmers disappear. An active player can work the riskiest locations with modest losses; an inactive one can lose almost everything in the Casino Lobby.
Fly a lot or play in short bursts? Use the Post Office or Subway. Online most of the day? Take the Casino and Airport rates.
Twenty skimmers is the hard cap
You can hold a maximum of 20 installed across all locations. Past that you must recover some or wait for them to be found before installing more.
Swap to safe locations before going offline
A reasonable pattern for active players: work the Airport or Casino during the day, then move to the Subway before sleeping. You keep the high daytime rate without paying the overnight losses.
Crime skill: install vs recover
This is the part worth understanding properly, because it decides how you should spend nerve. Installing always grants the same skill regardless of location. Recovery scales with how many details the skimmer holds.
| Details held | Result |
|---|---|
| 0 | About a third of an install. Roughly 50% less nerve-efficient |
| 6 to 7 | Break-even with installing |
| 13 | Recovery matches an install outright |
| Beyond 13 | Recovery beats installing, with no observed cap up to 250+ |
Three ways to level the crime
Pick based on how much nerve you have and how patient you are. All three work.
Fast and expensive: install, recover, repeat
Skip the waiting entirely and cycle hardware as fast as your nerve allows. The fastest route to higher-tier locations, and the most wasteful. Only worth it if you are running boosters and want the Casino Lobby quickly.
Balanced: install, wait 6 to 12 hours, recover
Install in the morning and at night, using natural regeneration and your booster cooldown. Long enough for skimmers to pass the 6 to 7 detail break-even, short enough to keep a daily rhythm. This is the sensible default.
Slowest and most efficient: install and leave for weeks
Put twenty skimmers somewhere safe and forget them for two to three weeks. Because recovery skill scales linearly with details and has no observed ceiling, a single recovery can carry several levels. This is the right choice if you are actively working a different crime.
Installing a skimmer gives the same skill as recovering one holding 13 details. That single fact tells you whether waiting is worth it.
Do not sell for skill
Selling grants roughly half the skill of an install, and the amount does not change with volume. Selling a couple of dozen details gives the same skill as selling thousands. Sell for money, never for progression.
What details sell for
Sale value scales with how many details you sell at once, so hoarding pays. Where the details came from has no effect on price.
| Details sold | Value each |
|---|---|
| 1 to 100 | $100 to $160 |
| 101 to 1,000 | $130 to $190 |
| 1,001 to 9,999 | $160 to $220 |
| 10,000+ | $190 to $250 |
Failures and crits
Each sub-crime fails differently, and the costs are not equal.
A failed recovery blocks the ATM
Not a crit, just a delay: the machine locks for 10 to 30 minutes before you can try that skimmer again. Mildly annoying, nothing more.
A crit on recovery destroys everything in the skimmer
You permanently lose the card skimmer, the spy camera and every detail it held, plus 1 to 3 hours of jail. This is the real argument against leaving 250 details in a risky location longer than you need to.
Skill loss on a crit is flat
Testing suggests the skill penalty does not scale with details held. Two logged crits at 13 and 7 details cost 160% and 140% respectively, a gap small enough to be explained by the skill levels involved.
A crit while selling loses the lot
All stored details are destroyed. If you have been hoarding towards the 10,000 honor bar, that is the moment it hurts.
The three honor bars
With no uniques in this crime, the honor bars are most of the reason to play it.
King PIN: reach CS 100
Standard progression bar. Any of the three levelling routes gets you there.
Zero Liability: recover a skimmer holding 250 details
Twenty skimmers in the College Campus left for about two weeks does it, replacing any that get found. If you would rather not think about it at all, use the Gas Station and leave them for a month with no maintenance.
At 2.15 details per hour, the Casino Lobby reaches 250 in roughly four to five days, if you can stay active enough to keep the skimmers alive.
Line of Credit: sell 10,000 details at once
The long game. It also happens to be the best-paying batch tier at $190 to $250 per detail, so the honor bar and the profit align.
State of emergency
When a dirty bomb is armed, the Bus Station and Subway Station lock down. No installing, no recovering.
Skimmers keep working while locked down
Details continue accumulating in locked locations even though you cannot reach the hardware. Whether that is intended is unclear, but it works in your favour.
The Airport is a likely candidate too
Given restricted airspace during an emergency, expect the Airport Terminal to behave the same way, though this has not been confirmed.
How to play it
Putting it together.
Buy hardware in bulk early
At $175 and $130, twenty of each costs about $6,100. Since both are returned on recovery, this is close to a one-off expense.
Match the location to your activity, not to the rate
The Casino Lobby collects five times faster than the Gas Station, but loses over half its skimmers during short absences. If you are not online regularly, the slow safe location beats the fast risky one.
Let details build past 13 before recovering
That is the point where recovery matches installing for nerve spent. Below it you are wasting nerve; above it every extra hour is free progression.
Hoard details and sell in one enormous batch
Selling gives negligible skill regardless of volume, and per-detail value rises with batch size. There is no reason to sell early. Bank towards 10,000 and take the honor bar with it.
Collection rates, detection rates and sale values come from community log collection and observation. Sale value tiers in particular are based on observation rather than confirmed figures. Torn rebalances Crimes 2.0 regularly, so treat these as strong estimates.