credit card fraud? have you been done recently?

smileypigface

Before the days of chip and pin I was contacted by Tesco credit card - a card that stayed locked away indoors as a 'just in case' but hadn't been used for a year. My card had been used for online gambling for quite large sums - I confirmed it wasn't me and they closed my account and opened a completely new one for me - I had to sign a declaration that the transactions weren't mine and was never held liable for the costs.

When I asked how they could have possibly got my card details considering it was literally under lock and key - I was told the crooks use a computer programme to enter huge numbers of combinations of numbers into the gambling site until they find a set of numbers that work.

So it doesn't always mean that you have been face to face with the crook that's got your number - it could be completely random.

Don't know if the introduction of chip and pin put a stop to this sort of fraud.

My other experience of errors on my credit card is much more amusing ... when I spotted a transaction on my Halifax card to "Cow in a Box" - wonderful - always wanted a cow!!!!! It was simply a case of numbers being transposed when someone made a telephone purchase with their credit card .... I was soooooooooo disappointed not to get the cow!!!!!!:rotfl:

(think it was a supplier of organic meat - not nearly as amusing - I'd rather have one that is stil moo-ing!!)

patwa_2

Sadly, Chip 'n PIN has mainly been devised to try to curve offline fraud, obviously it's still not enough - I've seen Chip 'n PIN machines with cameras inserted into them to capture the series of numbers being entered, and have also seen machines and have been shown how they were tampered to log the entered PINs, similar to a computer keylogger. Really quite ingenious.

So the random number generation technique still works for online fraud, however with some banks, (Natwest springs to mind) they have set up a pin verification system where you verify your PIN for 'second-level' authorisation which is helping a bit, but not all banks implement this. The software used to do this, which I also had the previlage to see in action is quite literally a random number generator. There are a number of pre-defined rules for credit card numbers, I won't go into them here, but suffice to say it is only necessary to work out at most 8 of the digits on your card, which significantly shortens the time necessary to find valid matches. the rest is relatively easy, there are rules that govern the expiry/start dates as well.

James

Stamford:

Fraudsters get away with £1000.

"Unfortunately all the transactions were carried out using chip and pin, so we have no finger prints or signatures."

Consumers in Bournemouth & Poole should check their accounts:

James

Yet another location to add to the ever growing list:

VILLAGERS in Little Abington were unaware of the danger lurking in their wallets. But when cash started disappearing before Christmas, residents soon woke up to the menace of card cloning.

TokyoJoe

We have just lost £300 although Abbey tells us they will re credit us. Abbey actually stopped the card after they noticed a number of cash withdrawals in two indian cities.

We are 99% certain that the card was cloned at a Petrol station in Bromley not one we normally use as this was the only card transaction we had made in January. Also when we purchased petrol it was very strange as the shop and forecourt lights had been switched off although the station were open ( I think so that they only had a small number of people in the shop at one time). The cashier was also very nervous and double swiped our card , and did not offer a reciept. When I asked for one I was only given a reciept from the till not from the visa machine.

What really annoyed me was
1- The attitude of the police who said they would take no further action as the money was taken in India ( Although they said they would add it to the intelligence system)
2- The major petrol chain who said they could do nothing as it was a franchise and not their own staff. They actually said theywould just inform the owner.

The policeman also told us he would never use a credit/ debit card at a petrol station.

James

Tokoy Joe - Bromley was high on the list of places I posted.

The latest isn't too far from you - Redhill.

MOTORISTS have had hundreds of pounds stolen from their bank accounts days after using their cash cards at a Redhill petrol station

The message remains the same and I don't apologise.

Check your accounts.

Get youself a Chip & Signature Credit Card.

wazk224

I have discovered today that my CC has been used fraudulently four times, items totalling nearly £2000. This was only noticed when I received two delivery notes for some electronic equipment. The equipment was to be delivered to an address in Kent (I live in the North West), and the equipment bought at a Comet store in Hull (which I never been to). The delivery was for today and so I contacted the local police to go and catch the perpetrators but they weren't really interested, either couldn't be bothered to ring Kent Police or inundated with this sort of thing.

CC company is Nationwide, I therefore believe I must be one of the unlucky ones with details on the laptop that was stolen.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/6160054.stm

James

Surrey:

Overall crime also saw a rise of 3.5 per cent, from 35,947 to 37,192.

Police say this is because of 1,854 fraud offences being investigated at a single petrol station in west Surrey.

Bromley update:

Was Break-IN to Blame For Scam?

Readers Comment to Bromely Story:

"My account had 3 cash wishdrawls from ATMs in Bankok with the added fees for overseas transanctions so my pin number must have been used."

Cappsy

Cappsy wrote:

Card is blocked and cut up and Fraud Confirmation letter is on the way for me to sign. All Transactions are Canadian apparently!

Worrying, but should be OK now, hopefully.

C

Took a further phone call two weeks later when I received my paper statement with the transactions listed. Transactions removed the day after the phone call. Got the fraud confirmation letter to sign a couple of days later which I've signed and returned.

The end.. hopefully.

John_Pierpoint

Hi James and other MSE victims,

Tonight the BBC1 "Watchdog" program, helped by a couple of bright sparks from Cambridge, demonstrated a clever scam:

Shop 1, a bookshop had a PIN terminal. Shop 2, next door, a cafe, also had a PIN terminal BUT the line from the fraudulent terminal had been diverted with a wireless router to the real terminal in shop 1. So customer in shop two paying 5 GBP puts in his details including the (encoded ?) PIN and they are sent to shop 1 here they are delayed long enough to change the 5GBP into 50 GBP and then the transaction is sent on to the bank by the legitimate terminal.
The customer in the cafe is now down 50 GBP and the two shops have sold one cup of coffee for 50GBP, they probably did not even need to have captured the PIN. It is a bit like the old days of signing the top copy and then discovering that scumbag on the till had put an extra 5 infront of the 5 on the slip that you had signed for, and helped himself to 50 GBP in folding money. out of the till.

Perhaps someone from the banks or an engineer can explain how the banks can protect against having a fake terminal broadcasting details to the operator of a legitimate terminal ?

TTFN

John

PS I hear today that the EU is introducing new fraud regulations in an attempt to catch up with the cross border frauds - don't hold your breath, if you have been sold the winnings of the Spanish lottery or some very dodgy futures contracts .