Tarnation!

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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:14 pm

Had a call from my bank this morning. They'd blocked a couple of strange transactions and wanted confirmation from me. One was for a purchase at Curry's online, for £365. The other was 2 attempted transfers of £56 to our old friend Westie Onion. Seems someone has gotten hold of my bank card details. Fortunately no other strange transactions had gone through, although there were a further 2 payments pending to the Westie. Bank account now inactive, and living on credit card until my new bank card arrives next week, with instructions on how to claim the money back if the 2 pending transactions are debited. Lovely. I'm very lucky compared to some, it was picked up quickly and I haven't lost anything, but can I just say.. BARSTEWARDS! Evil or Very Mad

I'm guessing the £365 was for a laptop. Either that or toasters have become very popular in ladland. Wink

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 8:22 pm

Your very lucky with your bank, at least they have caught it in time.
However what would have happened if you had been abroad and on holiday.
Banks ask you to tell them when you go abroad, so they know, when a large amount is taken out of your account, would they have been just as alert, to spot that it was not in the country you had told them about, makes you think.

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 9:26 pm

my brothers card got skimmed last year, and his bank didnt notice that quickly tho, they did a few small payments first of around £8 to test the water then tried several £500 payments, which the bank blocked most of, but it took him ages to sort. But he did get all his money back, so in the end it was all good.

Hope your probs resolve quickly cougar Smile

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 11:30 pm

If you are here,you are more security aware than most.Any idea how they got your info?

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:00 am

My credit cards have been compromised several times and once was when I was on vacation. The last place it had been used (by me) was an Icelandic Bookstore...Afterwards all kinds of special charges hit. The great card people actually refunded most of my trip without any sort of affidavit or anything to prove my innocence. I got lucky I suppose.

Recently my card which has a chip and a PIN# was used somewhere in the States to but a bunch of Apple products. Once again I said Huh? And all was taken care of by the fine folks at the company. If this keeps happening, however, i might just be liable for something.

Those hookers weren't really worth it anyway...but I digress.

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:46 am

A friend of mine had his business card skimmed. It had an 80k credit limit. The bank saw unusual activity and called him. The criminal had already charged over 2k on the card. He checked on line and the charges were mounting by the minute in the thousands of usd.

The bank did stop it and didn't hold him liable for any of it.

I had my lifted once too and the bank called. They had small charges from all over the country all in the same day. There was no way I could have traveled that far in one days time frame. Fortunately, the bank reversed them all.

It could have been a real expensive milkshake stop. Mad

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 11:54 am

Me too.

Back in December my card was used illegally - rather the card numbers- and my checking account was cleaned out of over $3,000

We figured out that my numbers were gotten from using a gas station that some crook had put "skimmer" readers in the slot where you put your card.

This skimming thing has become a nightmare in our area. The police have caught some of these criminals when they came back at night to retrieve their skimmers.

^^^ Now I take a $20 bill inside to the clerk, pump my gas and go back inside and give them my card and retrieve my $20.

This has been happening at restaurants also . The wait person will take your card to his/her POS computer but before they slide your card in the restaurants computer they will slide it with a device on their Smartphone.

^^ Now I accompany my bank card with the wait person to the computer he/she will be using. I do NOT let that bank card out of my sight.

Filing a report with my bank and icc.gov I got all my money back as the Credit Union was insured. We discovered purchases were made in 17 different states with my number.

A couple years ago another account got cleaned out ($30K this time). The Secret Service got involved and the SS told us to use our bank card as a credit card as our money will be safer in the account. Using it as a debit card, the SS, the bank, or credit union cannot help. Got all of that money back except for $700. That card belonged to Mr. M L. F -- and they believe while he had his card out to pay for something someone took a pic of it with their cell phone.

When I have to use the card in public areas such as a store, I keep my hand over the numbers as best I can while sliding the card through the reader, and then quickly turning the card upside down as I put it into the paper envelope the bank gave me. I also keep my cards in those aluminum card holders available now.

These blank bank cards are available on line as are the embossers to print the fake cards.

Another tip the Secret Service gave me was when purchasing gift cards that are hanging near a check out counter, do NOT take one of the first cards. Take one from the back. This is because some crooks have "readers" that will gather information from the first or second cards. Then when you buy that gc, it will be empty of the gift amount.

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:16 pm

Sounds as though you have a really good bank, Cougie, for them to have caught it so fast.

I am sure the Westy transactions threw the red flag for them. Glad you stopped it before it got out of control!

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:41 pm

There was a TV programme on tonight called Fake Britain.

It was shown that a extra printed circuit(fake) is put into portable chip and pin card scanner, stolen from shops, etc., and then replaced back, and know one would know they are there, except the crooks.

The crooks need to be near with a laptop to download the information, they can then change the scanner back and its only when money is taken out of your account, could be years later, would you know.

Seems the banks or anyone else does not want to broadcast the information in case it causes a panic.

I have posted the link to the programme, its in iplayer, i don't think people outside the United Kingdom can get it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01j87p9/Fake_Britain_Series_3_Episode_5/