2nd Card Fraud in less than 12 months

Atomik1

Hi,

I am looking for any further security advice regarding protecting debit card details etc.

I was a victim of debit card fraud in August last year as someone took £30 to top up an O2 account, which I reported to my bank (Smile/Co-op) as soon as noticed. Although Smile stated they would not divulge who or how it happened following their investigation, I assumed it must have happened when I checked into a Hotel and was asked for my card to be swiped, as the fraudulent transaction took place the next day. (I rarely use that debit card, and could see no other way my details could have been obtained).

I was issued with a new card and have ensured anything with my name/address details etc is shredded, I use Norton Security on my laptop, always check cashpoint slots to ensure they have not been tampered with and rarely hand over my card for payments, using cash instead and never pay for anything over the telephone or use telephone banking. So, I thought I was pretty safe until it has now happened again.

This time I noticed £10.00 was taken from my account a few weeks ago for Sky Digital. As I am not a Sky customer I rang my bank who said that someone had made this payment over the telephone using my card details for Sky services. I have now had to have my card cancelled and I am awaiting another new card.

I now I am going to sound as though my security must be slack, but I am totally flabbergasted this time as to how it happened. I cannot think of anything else I can do... does anyone have any further security tips? I think my bank are going to get fed up with me soon...

elamozzarella

I had my card defrauded after buying something from a seemingly secure site over the internet. Apparently that's how most card details get stolen in this country. I won't buy from non-massive sites (amazon, asos) now and I'm reluctant even to do that.

Atomik1

Thanks for the reply.

I had used my card at Amazon, Tesco, M&S and finally via Paypal in the month running up to this fraud transaction, so I too now feel a little vulnerable, even on the 'big name' sites. I always check for the https:// and padlock symbol and as you say you feel as though you should be safe when using a large companies website, but maybe these are not so secure...

elamozzarella

Me too. The site I used had a padlock and a verisign thing. I avoid non-bank ATMs too. What I find astonishing is that they'd tried to make about twelve very expensive transactions with my card which were declined, probably because they didn't have my pin or billing address, and my bank didn't alert me that this was happening. Odd since I've never had a transaction declined and pretty much the only place I spend money is Sainsbury's... On the plus side they were incredibly helpful and refunded the money almost straight away.

3Dogs

MohammadButler reported as SPAM

James

Just for info there's a relatively new web site, ACTION FRAUD, which:

Encourages you to Report a Fraud to them, no matter how small.

Provides Support.

Gives advice on simple steps you can take to protect yourself.

ACTION FRAUD (CLICK HERE). (Run by the National Fraud Authority)

For added protection agains ID Theft (Application Fraud) Click here.


For all victims please let Action Fraud know, if we don't tell them nothing will change.

hippey

Even the large online sites aren't 100% safe, or those retailers where you have used your card, don't forget the retailers copy often has most of the card details you need.

Olipro

You seem to be forgetting one potential and probable weak link in the chain: namely you and your computer.

if there is a keylogger/rootkit/trojan/whatever-you-like-to-call-today's-flavour-of-financial-malware then the security of the site you make purchases on is totally and utterly irrelevant because they can see everything you're doing.

Eventually this could well culminate in them presenting you with a fake cardreader security page for your online banking - if you ever get anything about "resyncing" or you find the last 4 digits of a respond challenge number don't match the last 4 digits of the account you want to setup, you're being duped - the same applies to using the sign function of a card reader for an amount of £0.00 as the result will be valid for a respond command using the same ref number- if you don't use a Barclays PINsentry then you're not vulnerable to this one. (and on a similar note, if you do respond with a ref of "00000000" then it will generate a response that would be valid for an Identify command)

In any case, either get someone who genuinely does know how to run a scan on a compromised computer computer (we're talking running a scan by booting a temporary environment on CD, although that's not technically guaranteed) or alternatively, wipe the computer and start afresh.