MSE News: Bogus mobile top-ups could spell greater fraud danger

Money_Grabber13579

Inactive wrote: »

Agreed, so did I, I have contacted them over a weekend before now.

It is 24/7. You must phone them immediately as this is card theft, and you may be liable for any future transactions. Phone the lost and stolen card number on 08457 99 22 22 (Nationwide, isn't it?) I had a £15 transaction on my card, and they managed to rack of £1000 of debt in 2 days after that.

withabix

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

It is 24/7. You must phone them immediately as this is card theft, and you may be liable for any future transactions. Phone the lost and stolen card number on 08457 99 22 22 (Nationwide, isn't it?) I had a £15 transaction on my card, and they managed to rack of £1000 of debt in 2 days after that.

Wrong.

It isn't card theft, it is card fraud which normally hasn't resulted from you being careless with your card and provided that they can't prove that you allowed someone to get hold of your card and pin, you won't be liable for ANY of the transactions.

Money_Grabber13579

withabix wrote: »

Wrong.

It isn't card theft, it is card fraud which normally hasn't resulted from you being careless with your card and provided that they can't prove that you allowed someone to get hold of your card and pin, you won't be liable for ANY of the transactions.

Yep I know, but it's all reported to the same department. It isn't physical card theft, but your card details have still been stolen, if you see what I mean!:p

Human123

Seems same thing has happened to me, a google search led me to this very page...

does anyone know what i should do? do i ring barclays or have to go into the bank?

withabix

Human123 wrote: »

Seems same thing has happened to me, a google search led me to this very page...

does anyone know what i should do? do i ring barclays or have to go into the bank?

Just phone Barclays customer services. If you are lucky, you might even get through to someone in the UK.

Mastertronic

I have just recieved my statement and noticed two £15 payments to 02 uk ltd aswell. I have cancelled my card ,i have also used Amazon recently and shopto which i have big doubts about their security procedures. I am from Northern Ireland and use Northern Bank and i dont use paypal or ebay. This is a very poor service from the card companys and especially these mobile firms, i dont feel confident using mine again until this breach has been repaired. I will be contacting watchdog aswell . I am so glad to read I am not alone in this thanks. I am an Orange customer and have never had an o2 phone either.

Geoffo_M

I have an O2 mobile, and have noticed that when I top-up online there is a red exclamation mark against the little padlock in the bottom right-hand corner (I use firefox). When I click on this, it says that not all the details on the page are encrypted when sent over the internet (this is the page they ask you to enter your credit card details!). The web address indicates that it's secure i.e. it starts https - but I am wondering if the reason there are so many frauds involving O2 is that fraudsters have been able to intercept c/c details as they are sent from customers topping-up to the O2 server?

Money_Grabber13579

Mastertronic wrote: »

I have just recieved my statement and noticed two £15 payments to 02 uk ltd aswell. I have cancelled my card ,i have also used Amazon recently and shopto which i have big doubts about their security procedures. I am from Northern Ireland and use Northern Bank and i dont use paypal or ebay. This is a very poor service from the card companys and especially these mobile firms, i dont feel confident using mine again until this breach has been repaired. I will be contacting watchdog aswell . I am so glad to read I am not alone in this thanks. I am an Orange customer and have never had an o2 phone either.

It's more than likely that there has been a keylogger downloaded to your system, maybe even a few years ago, that has since been deleted. However the damage was done when it recorded your card details. Same thing happened to me, and I do loads of online shopping! Hasn't happened again since though, fingers crossed!

kilasuit

thing is if you have ever placed your card in a compromised ATM where ur card details and pin get copied then they could just insert a copy of your card into a normal ATM and top-up from that as it will only ever ask you for the cards pin, mobile provider and number.

and yes i've topped up my phone off different cards via ATM in the past.

the reason behind this is the pin acts as verification that you are you so no more security checks are needed.

rb10

kilasuit wrote: »

thing is if you have ever placed your card in a compromised ATM where ur card details and pin get copied then they could just insert a copy of your card into a normal ATM and top-up from that as it will only ever ask you for the cards pin, mobile provider and number.

and yes i've topped up my phone off different cards via ATM in the past.

the reason behind this is the pin acts as verification that you are you so no more security checks are needed.

This is probably not the case here, as these are online purchases. If the card had been cloned, then you would see cash machine withdrawals and debit card (with PIN) purchases. The mobile phone top-ups are 'customer not present' purchases, where the PIN is not required, so it's far more likely to be what Blah99 described very well in this post - they make up 16 digit card numbers, and try millions of them for small amounts until they get a successful one.

They aren't doing it to get £30 of mobile credit for their phone, hence why they are not traceable. This transaction is a test, to see if the card is active, and so could be used for much larger transactions (i.e. several £1000s).