Cashpoint card cloning

Loretta

I don't know if I have put this in the right thread. I am sure we have all read about this but you always think this cannot happen to you.

My son phoned me last night to say that £900 was missing from his bank account. He had phoned the bank and was told that 3 withdrawals had been made £300 each over the weekend from cashpoints in 2 different areas of the country, not places he has ever been to. These withdrawals make him overdrawn and he has a dd coming out today. The bank told him they would stop his card and give him a free overdraft of the amount missing until it is sorted out. He will call into his bank branch today to sort out any details. He phoned the police and was given a crime number, they showed no more interest but said that over 1 thousand similar things happened nearly every month in the area.

What we want to know is what happens now? Do they just accept that this has happened and replace the money? Someone told him that the police are not interested partly because of the sheer numbers of this crime and that they think it is the bank's responsibility to look after their own money and tighten up on security, is this correct?

My son has never been over drawn before (unlike me!) and is now concerned about his DDs which all start coming out about now as he has just been paid.

The other thing is he usually uses a cashpoint near where he lives. For the past couple of weeks there has been a man hanging around the cashpoint machine. He is seemingly homeless but something registered with my son and now this has happened he realises that there was something about this bloke. He was large and quite intimidating but although he was dressed scruffily there was something about him, his cleanliness, very smooth skin that suggested he wasn't homeless, difficult to explain. When people were using the cashpoint he was standing very close to them, even when there was a queue, almost getting in the way, and my son saw this and carefully covered the keypad when he was doing his number so that there was no chance of it being seen. On one occasion my son saw an older lady using the cash point who told this man that he was standing far too close to her and she felt he was invading her space and he went quite over the top apologising, quite theatrical with it. This man had definitely not seen my son's number, he is very aware of these things, so he says there must have been some gadget on the cashpoint that records the card details. He thought that the police may be interested in this man but they were not even though this is a busy cashpoint in a city centre and this bloke had been hanging around the cashpoint for a couple of weeks and could still be there today. I know this sort of thing is a big and organised crime and the man is just a 'number'.

Is there anything my som should be doing today other than what he has already done? How long does this take to sort out? Is there anything he should be watching out for until this is sorted, especially about what the bank will do

Thanks for your help

skintchick

Hi - the police aren't interested, no, but now you have a crime number the bank will give your son his money back, so that's OK.

Perhaps get in touch with your local paper? They could do a story to warn other people.

On a general note, card readers/cloners from what I have seen are outies, wheras normal cashpoints are innies - the slot is in a dip not on a sticky out bit, does that make sense?

So check, and if it is an outie don;t use it!

/but the bank will give him his money so don;t fret.

My card was stolen in a pub and used, and I didn;t realise till the next morning but I still got my cash back.

T.K.Maxx

I tend to use the same cashpoint it's located on a garage forecourt and has loads of cctv cameras around so if there were anything dodgy at least I hope it should be on film ?

Loretta

T.K.Maxx wrote:

I tend to use the same cashpoint it's located on a garage forecourt and has loads of cctv cameras around so if there were anything dodgy at least I hope it should be on film ?

I don't think that this is going to be investigated so if there are cameras no one is interested, I am sure there are plenty of cameras but perhaps banks should have them on their cashpoints for their own security. you don't think of these things until it happens to you. I presume that several other people will be getting in touch with their banks about the same thing so they then know that there is a problem

Thanks Skintchick, the funny thing is if the cashpoint was different in any way I am sure my son would notice as he is very aware if this sort of thing, but I do not understand what this man was doing as I am sure the gadget on the cashpoint was doing what was necessary. This man may be nothing to do with it but I do think if something or someone registers with you as not quite right even if you do not know why you are probably correct if that makes sense.

I let you know what happens as eventualoly it will probably happen to all of us

MrsTinks

It COULD be this guy but don't forget that it will be very hard to prove The police have nothing to go on to be fair. Chances are that anyone with clever enough equipment are clever enough to hide themselves installing and removing it. Him hangin around is not really enough to drag him in on... They do get thousands of these cases each day and to expect them to investigate each one is unrealistic I think Hopefully now that there is a crime number the bank will be able to refund him the money

Loretta

I have an update on this now. When my son phoned me last night he had phoned his bank and it all seemed straightforward. He called into his branch at lunchtime, his bank, Lloyds, is in a nearby town where he works rather than the city the cashpoint was in which is round the corner from where he lives and was told that this happens, the bank would put the money back into his account pending an enquiry he gave them the crime number and made a statement saying what happened and had to sign something to say that if in the future it was found that he was lying or convicted of having anything to do with the crime the bank had the right to take the money back which is fair enough. He was told that he was an easy one to sort out as there had just been 3 withdrawals from cashpoints, they had just had to deal with someone whose card was used on the internet, I don't know the details and the bank had had to contact several firms which took a lot of sorting out. After that it decsended into chaos becuase they used the wrong forms etc but they were very helpful and he feels that they will get there in the end.

Ater he phoned me last night he thought they ought to check his fiancees account on the internet too. She has used this cashpoint and it is outside her own branch of her bank, Nat West. She had £200 missing, all she had in there. She phoned the number that was given and was asked several times if she was sure that she had not spent the money and forgotten. My son spoke to the person on the phone and told them it had happened to both of them and not to be so rude and patronising.

Having not got very far she also phoned the police and got a crime number. Today she went into her bank to see what would happen and found it crowded with other people who had had the same thing happen to them, which in a way was good. She and they were all told by the bank that it was nothing to do with the bank, they had to deal with it themselves and were given a number to phone which was the same number that she had phoned last night who were so unhelpful. Unfortunately she just took what was said and left. If I had been there I would have realised that with so many other people there in the same situation it was a definite advantage for getting something done and I would have stayed until it was sorted out. She did ask to speak to the Manager but was told there wasn't one! Her manners are far better than mine, she is very young, and she just left and went to work!

It is interesting that the 2 banks treated this so differently. I am hoping that tomorrow there will be the next wave of people in her bank who have just found out that they have money missing and when she goes back in there if she does not get it sorted out I will go down to the bank and help her. I am not sure what I will do but I will insist that something is done, I don't give up on these things, the bank presumes that you do not know your rights but as my son was treated so differently (not because he has any money) and from the information I have received on here I know her bank are wrong.

I hope that we can all learn from this as from what I have hear it is very common. We looked on the website of our local paper and it said in 2004 1400 people had this happen in the city, even if they all lost £500 it is a huge amount of money and has made me realise that it could happen to any of us and probably will.

I asked my son if he noticed anything about the cashpoint, I think that he was thinking about this bloke hanging around at the time and he said that looking back the only thing that was different was that the cashpoint seemed really slow, but apart from this bloke it was dark, freezing cold, pouring with rain and the wind was blowing like mad, you just don't notice things if you don't really know what to watch out for.