How can this possibly happen?
 

I went to pay for something with my card this morning and the guy behind the counter told me that it was declined. I thought it was really strange as i have money in my account, so i rang my bank and asked them to give me a breakdown of all transactions including any pending ones. Turns out that some motherfucker withdrew a big chunk of my money out IN GERMANY(!!!!!!!), yesterday afternoon. I don't recall flying out to Hamburg to do just that.

It seems there's quite a serious problem with cards being cloned. I had only read about it happening in petrol stations, but if it's happening there, I guess it can easily happen elsewhere too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6578595.stm

There's another scam involving dodgy cashpoint machines too.

It's happened to me twice before and i always got my money back because it was obvious that those transactions didn't belong to me, so i'm not entirely shocked. When the girl i spoke to on the phone told me that the money was withdrawn in euros from a cash machine in Germany and came out in sterling from my account, i thought it was the oddest thing that's happened to me. It's also a hassle because it means i'll have to go and fill in a form in the bank and go to report it to the police after, close down the account and open another one etc.

its happened to me as well. it was quite scary and not a very nice feeling at all knowing that someone is taking all your money. in leeds people used to come around and go through your bins to see of they could find any old bank statements or receipts with info on them so they could use it themselves.

when i told the bank they didnt believe me and made me feel like i was a criminal until they saw transactions happening when i was stood infront of them so it obviously couldnt have been me.

Somebody was taking about £30 out of my account every month. And because it was such small amounts, and never for exactly the same amount, I didn't notice for a while.

You get the money back, but it's such a pain as porky said, going to the police and filling in forms at the bank.

One of the most annoying things is exactly the feeling of someone having access to your account.I didn't have problems proving that it wasn't me spending the money because i was at work when the transactions were put through, and also i have never been to a Peckham supermarket or bought shoes in Bond Street.

i got the money back but it took a while and i had to take out a lot of cash to survive and then destroy my card and wait until they sent me another. its just a worrying feeling knowing that you have a doppleganger out there.

it has never happened again thank god.

The whole closing down the account and opening another one, going to collect a new card from your local branch and having to withdraw all the money out in order to survive is also something that is a right pain in the arse.

bah thats fucked
do you use your card online? thats really terrible, can you do anything about the missing money?

With mine, the bank couldn't tell me where the money was going, and so my only option was opening a new account.

To be fair to the bank, they did that for me straight away, and transferred all my direct debits etc. without any fuss.

EDIT: and I got my money back.

When i closed my account the first time, the system (it's always the system, innit?) opened four different accounts and the person dealing with it was having troubles tracing the account that my wages were going into. The inconvenience is having to go to the nearest branch when you are at work, so your lunch break is spent filling in forms and dealing with stuff like that.

Apparently the scumbags cloned my card and, through a sophisticated advice that they mounted on a cash machine that i must have used, they were able to poach my pin number too. The good thing is that the whole thing might be sorted out by tomorrow and i'll get my dough back.

What a horrible experience you've had. There's been a spate of ATM cloning around where I work, and so I will either only use cash machines that are either inside a bank, or make damn sure that nothing is in the card slot before I stick my card in. You can't be too safe/paranoid when it comes to this.

i didnt have to do all that thankgod. my account was closed for a while and they did some investigations but i dont think they ever found out who it was. the transactions where for some media company for about £280 and then some online shopping which they managed to block. sorry to hear about it all man.

May I just point out:

Haha.

the worst that I've had happen was when my wife and I were moving out of our first apartment. the landlord was showing the place while we were gone and somebody must have stolen some of my old starter checks (I should have destroyed them).

because they were carbon copies of checks that I'd written, it had my driver's license number written on them. they were able to use this to write checks for cash at a walmart an hour away from me.

I was also able to get my money back, but like you said it's a real pain in the ass.

crime pays.

the same exact thing i do, not that i have much money at anytime in my account, but when i need cash, more then 90% of the time i get from a bank atm (mostly my own to not be charged the $2 service fee on non my-back atms), and i am extra particular with what sites i purchase from, like on GEMM, say a guy from england is selling Hanatarashi lp for say 40 quid, and the guy has no feedback and isn't certified, then i ain't gonna take the chance, they have to prove they are reliable and not scamming the crap out of people, you really can't be too safe indeed

and also, those machines, some people not only tamper with an existing one, some people are so conniving that they would buy their own machine, set it out in a store to collect any credit card numbers they come across, it's rare but it has happened

Crime spends.

True, i read of something similar a while ago. It just means that from now on i'll make it the rule to use atm machines inside the branch of a bank, rather than one on the street. At least whenever i can, because it's not always possible.

wait until it happens to you sunny boy. no doubt we will see a million posts from you moaning on about it.

i would think it is quite hard to tamper with the bank ones that are outdoors, i mean most of them have cameras mounted on them, they'd have to be thick to think they wouldn't notice for long, i think they restock them atleast daily

its quite common in england for them to put things into the machine so that it skims your details. when the students start at university for the first time a lot of them become victims to this kind of crime.

I've started using cash almost exclusively (again) and stopped using the debit in place of the credit card. The technology is unsafe.

Apparently Barclays Bank have made their outdoor machines tamper-proof, by making them so that the skimming machine can't be attached.

According to the guy i spoke to in the local branch today, there is also a wave of crime created by the advent of those pin machines that you get everywhere. He advised me to be careful when you pay for something that way too. That is just insane, they were introduced to make card transactions safer in the first place, and now they got turned into instruments of the devil.

damn! porkie, sorry to hear.

ive never had that happen-- only a credit card that someone attempted to use & was rejected.

the shredder is your friend


the ones with cross cut or "confetti" cut are the best. i swear.

I've got a big mountain of papers that need to be shredded.
I generally let them pile up pretty high before I do them. I have one that just lays over the top of a special garbage can too, so the capacity is greater than most shredders.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/atm/20021004a.asp
Skimming the cash out of your account
By Laura Bruce • Bankrate.com
A sharp-eyed customer making a transaction at an ATM outside a Boca Raton, Fla., Bank of America branch noticed a gap behind the metal faceplate of the ATM. A closer look revealed double-sided tape was all that kept the faceplate in place. Thinking it looked a tad suspicious, the customer gave a yank and the faceplate came off in his hands.

(YEAH, RIGHT, YOU JUST KNOW THIS GUY WAS FLASHING BACK TO WHEN HE STOLE THOSE QUARTERS OUT OF THE ARCADE MACHINE AT THE ROLLER RINK AS A TEEN; HE THOUGHT HE WAS GONNA REACH INSIDE & PULL OUT CA$H)

What the man had discovered was an ATM skimming device. Slide your ATM card into a skimmer and it will read all the account information stored electronically on the magnetic stripe, plus, depending on the sophistication, record your personal identification number, or PIN, as you punch it in on the ATM keypad.
Next thing you know, your checking account is notably lighter.
ATM skimming devices come in two flavors: ones that interfere with the ATM operation and ones that don't.
The skimmers that interfere with the ATM operation are a bit easier to detect because even though customers insert or swipe their cards, it's not the ATM's card reader so the ATM isn't actually being used and the customer isn't getting any money.
That was the set up in the Boca Raton incident.
"They probably cased several ATMs at different banks, looking for an ATM face that they could build," says Detective Pedro Palenzuela of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
"They used a grayish, fabricated metal container that looked like the same material. It was shaped to fit on the ATM but inside was a small laptop computer. It prompted the customer with a touch-screen instead of a keypad. The ATM had a card reader next to it.
"There was also a sign that said the ATM instructions had changed. The customer would swipe their card and would be prompted -- 'Welcome to Bank of America.' It had all the instructions Bank of America would have. The customer would slide their card and the computer captured the information, saving it to the hard drive and storing the PIN.
"Then the customer would see a screen that says, 'Thank you for using Bank of America. There has been a malfunction.'
"It was a pretty good scam," says Palenzuela.
In other skimming cases, the thieves don't interfere with the normal operation of the ATM. The skimmer is placed over the card reader but doesn't block off the reader, and the customer gets money when making a withdrawal.
Thinking thieves
The bad guys are efficient and competent, says Rob Evans, marketing director at NCR, an ATM manufacturer.
"They're not idiots or drug-addled junkies trying to get $20. They're consummate businessmen. They adjust for the last countermeasure that we put in place. We build the wall higher, but they keep coming back with taller ladders."
It's hard to pin down numbers on just how pervasive skimming is becoming. It's been happening since the late '90s but has become more popular with the criminal element with the advent of smaller computing devices.
It can happen not just at ATMs, but also at cash registers when you make a purchase. Pay your restaurant tab with a credit card and you have no idea what the waiter might be doing with the card when it's out of your sight.
But skimming at ATMs can be much more damaging because of the number of accounts and the amount of money that can be quickly accessed.
Kurt Helwig, executive director of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association, which is spearheading a task force to tackle the problem, says criminals are willing to invest some time and money in skimming frauds because of the potential bounty.
"Twenty years ago, we defined ATM crime as someone getting hit over the head and having their money stolen. Then it was shoulder-surfing, watching someone punch in their PIN and leaving their receipt behind. This is the next step. It's not just a one-on-one robbery. There's a lot of money involved."

Experts say crime rings sometimes skim ATMs, and the damage can be extensive. A New York ring installed more than 20 modified ATMs and compromised more than 26,000 transactions and thousands of cards from 1,400 issuers. Losses were pegged at $3.5 million before the case was cracked.

There are approximately 360,000 ATMs nationwide. About half of them belong to banks, and the rest are so-called "nonbank" ATMs in convenience stores, malls, hotel lobbies, airports, etc.
ATMs that have swipe readers (you swipe your card through a raised slot) are the easiest to skim. Swipe readers are more likely to be found at nonbank ATMs.
"Most ATM manufacturers are aggressively moving away from swipe to a dip or manual insert reader that has less accessible external parts because the reader head is buried in the machine," say Jim Merrell of Ohio-based ATM manufacturer Diebold.
But that doesn't mean you should avoid ATMs that have swipe readers.
"There are tens of thousands of them. Just beware of something that doesn't look quite right," says Merrell.

The fact that there are so many ATMs contributes to the skimming problem. In a way, we've become victims of the convenience we demand.
"The notion of 24-hour access," says Evans. "It used to be that the ATM was through the wall of the bank branch. They'd monitor it and know if anything was wrong. Now there are ATMs everywhere in unattended locations. Bad guys have options they didn't used to have."
The ATM skimming task force that Kurt Helwig's organization, the EFTA, is leading is bringing together all segments of the ATM industry -- manufacturers, processors and financial institutions, as well as the U.S. Secret Service, which is involved in ATM skimming investigations.
"We want to stay ahead of this as an industry," says Helwig. "We're looking at where the system is vulnerable. Our goal is an industry-wide solution."
The task force will be looking at a number of ways to combat skimming, including the design of ATMs and magnetic stripe technology.
Evans says a technology called Jitter is one way to beat skimming.
"A skimming device needs a nice, smooth card reader. Jitter varies the speed and reverses the direction of the card intermittently and in a random fashion when the card is entered."
Jitter is being deployed mainly on newer, motorized card readers.
Implementing technology changes will be a massive job, but task force members say the situation will be much worse if consumers lose faith in the system.
"Card-based purchases -- online, debit and credit -- are so convenient for the consumer and are the lion's share of commerce in the developed world," says Evans.
"We can't take this lightly. The industry has to make sure that cards are well protected and that consumers don't hesitate to use them. If there's any hesitation at all -- this store doesn't look right or this ATM doesn't look right -- then there's a very real risk that card usage will decline dramatically."
If you are a skimming victim, your bank should refund all of the money that was lost.
"We regret any inconvenience to our customers who become victims of fraudulent activity in their accounts," says Bank of America spokeswoman Lisa Gagnon.
"Bank of America protects its customers against fraud in many ways, which includes our commitment to assume 100-percent responsibility for the cost of the fraud for customers who have unauthorized activity on their ATM or check card,"
Here are some tips to help you avoid becoming a skimming victim.

• Keep your PIN safe. Don't give it to anyone.
• (BOSCO)
  Watch out for people who try to "help" you at an ATM.
• Look at the ATM before using it. If it doesn't look right, don't use it.
  
  If an ATM has any unusual signage, don't use it. No bank would hang a sign that says, "Swipe your ATM here before inserting it in the card reader" or something to that effect.
  
  If your card is not returned after the transaction or after pressing cancel, immediately contact the institution that issued it.
• Check your statements to be sure there are no unusual withdrawals.

I NEVER enter my pin into those things! I'm not sure how it is "over there", but here you only need to enter your pin if you want cash back.

when they first started using these at the grocery stores, entering your pin and NOT getting cash back still caused a transaction fee to hit my bank account....so I stopped doing it.

sometimes it freaks out the machine by hitting cancel, but I always insist that the checker makes it happen. there is no reason I need to give Walmart my pin.

floatingslowly, your checkcard/visa has a dual channel, it can work as atm or it can work thru visa-- visa doesnt give cashback, hence you need to access the atm path for the $. when you use visa, visa eats the charges.

yeah, I know.

that's why I insist that if I'm paying for something....it goes the Visa route!

if I wanted to use an ATM, I'll go to the bank or 7-11 (where it's free).

those damn pin machines are everywhere though.

I have to say, that it's good to see that the scam artists have moved on.

god I miss getting email from Nigeria.

Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 02:41:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: TREAT AS URGENT CONFIDENTIAL
FROM DR CHARLES PIEDO
AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING UNIT.
FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPT.
INTERNATIONAL BANK OF AFRICA
TEL 228 0-5-5-1-5-2
LOME - TOGO
ATTN: JOHN SMITH
I am DR CHARLES PIEDO, the director in charge of auditing and accounting section of international bank of Africa Lome-Togo in west Africa with due respect and regards. I have decided to contact you on a business transaction that will be very beneficial to both of us at the end of the transaction.
During our investigation and audting in this bank, my department came across a very huge sum of money belonging to a deceased person who died on November 1997 in a plane crash and the fund has been dormant in his account with this bank without any claim of the fund in our custody either from his family or relation before our discovery to this development.
Although personally, I kept this information secret within myself and partner to enable the whole plans and idea be pofitable and successful during the time of execution. The said amount was USD$14m (fourtheen million united states dorllars). As it may intrest you to know, I got your impressive information through my good friend who works with chamber of commerce on foriegn business relations here in Lome-Togo. It is him who recommended your person to me to be viable and capable to champion a business of such magnitude without any problem. Meanwhile all the whole arrangement to put claim over this fund as the bonafide next of kin to the deceased, get the required approval and transfer this money to a foriegn account has been put in place and directives and needed information will be relayed to you as soon as you indicate your intrest and willingness to assist us and also benefit your self to this great business opportunity.

In fact I could have done this deal alone but because of my position in this country as a civil servant, we are not allowed to operate a foriegn account and would eventually raise an eye brow on my side during the time of transfer because I work in this bank. This is the actual reason why it will require a second party or fellow who will forward claims as the next of kin with affidavit of trust of Oath to the bank and also present a foriegn account where he will need the money to be re-transfered into on his request as it may be after due verification and clarification by designation bank account.
I will not fail to inform you that this transaction is 100% risk free. On smoth conclusion of this transaction, you will be entitiled to 30% of the total sum as gratification, while 10% will be set aside to take care of expenses that may arise during the time of transfer and also telephone bills, while 60% will be for me and my partners. Please,you have been adviced to keep top secret as we are still in service and intend to retire from service after we conclude this deal with you. I will be monitoring the whole situation here in this bank until you confirm the money in your account. And ask us to come down to your country for subsequent sharing of the fund according to percentages previously indicated and further investment, either in your country or any country you advice us to invest in.All other necessary information will be sent to you when I hear from you.I suggest you get back to me as soon as possible stating your wish in this deal.

Yours faithfully,
Dr CHARLES PIEDO

we usually just go to the bank & take a wad of cash for the expenses every week.

using the card in random places is not just dangerous but it's also hard to keep track--- 5 bucks here, 5 bucks there, suddenly it adds up to $300.

if I got cash, my wife would spend it all on shoes and drinks at the bar. :mad:

her ninja spending would cost me more than any ATM-grifter could!

ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Really sorry to hear about that. Coming from the same area, hope it wasn't a local machine being skimmed. I'm definitely going to stick to in-bank machines from now on.