Bank card fraud/theft

JakkiB

My daughter has had her bank card used at various places & at ATMs with the card remaining in her possession.  Her bank has been contacted and refuse to help her claiming she has used her own card.  Is it possible her card could have been cloned?  She has reported the incidents to the police and Action Fraud and got the necessary ref numbers which have been passed to her bank, who still refuse to help.  Any advise or signposts of what to do & where to go for help now?

soolin

JakkiB said:

My daughter has had her bank card used at various places & at ATMs with the card remaining in her possession.  Her bank has been contacted and refuse to help her claiming she has used her own card.  Is it possible her card could have been cloned?  She has reported the incidents to the police and Action Fraud and got the necessary ref numbers which have been passed to her bank, who still refuse to help.  Any advice or signposts of what to do & where to go for help now?

It is perfectly possible the card has been cloned , but the use of the card in an ATM suggests that someone has managed to both clone the card and obtain the pin. If it wasn’t for the ATM use then there are possibilities around a physical cloned card or a phone app but the ATM use is problematic.

Is the area the card being used in local at all? 

Exodi

soolin said:

JakkiB said:

My daughter has had her bank card used at various places & at ATMs with the card remaining in her possession.  Her bank has been contacted and refuse to help her claiming she has used her own card.  Is it possible her card could have been cloned?  She has reported the incidents to the police and Action Fraud and got the necessary ref numbers which have been passed to her bank, who still refuse to help.  Any advice or signposts of what to do & where to go for help now?

It is perfectly possible the card has been cloned , but the use of the card in an ATM suggests that someone has managed to both clone the card and obtain the pin. If it wasn’t for the ATM use then there are possibilities around a physical cloned card or a phone app but the ATM use is problematic.

Is the area the card being used in local at all? 

I don't think it's particularly unusual for a fraudster to know the PIN for a cloned card. Many scammers may have cloned the card  using a skimmer/shimmer fitted to an ATM in the first place, so it's not out of the ordinary to expect a camera or other device would be installed at the same time to capture the PIN. ATM's can't tell the difference between cloned and un-cloned cards (surprisingly).

However, I agree with you that it makes it more suspicious for the bank. Where were the transactions/ATM's based? Were they local to your daughter. While it is likely (as fraudsters are physically installing devices, they more often than not will be local to their victims), it exasperates the banks suspicion, and then top it off with the fact the daughter has reported that she has not lost her card.

Most of these cases are resolved by CCTV footage of the person withdrawing the money or purchasing the item. I think until your daughter (or the police more specifically) can provide this, then she will probably be hard-pressed to successfully convince the bank that someone else happened to use her card where she lived with her pin.

Manxman_in_exile

Exodi said:

soolin said:

JakkiB said:

My daughter has had her bank card used at various places & at ATMs with the card remaining in her possession.  Her bank has been contacted and refuse to help her claiming she has used her own card.  Is it possible her card could have been cloned?  She has reported the incidents to the police and Action Fraud and got the necessary ref numbers which have been passed to her bank, who still refuse to help.  Any advice or signposts of what to do & where to go for help now?

It is perfectly possible the card has been cloned , but the use of the card in an ATM suggests that someone has managed to both clone the card and obtain the pin. If it wasn’t for the ATM use then there are possibilities around a physical cloned card or a phone app but the ATM use is problematic.

Is the area the card being used in local at all? 

... Most of these cases are resolved by CCTV footage of the person withdrawing the money or purchasing the item. I think until your daughter (or the police more specifically) can provide this, then she will probably be hard-pressed to successfully convince the bank that someone else happened to use her card where she lived with her pin.

Do you really think the police will be bothered with the hassle of obtaining CCTV footage for this?  (I know that should be their job, but do you really think they'll do anything at all?)

Regarding CCTV footage of the ATM withdrawals, surely that's within the OP's daughter's bank's remit, isn't it?  How could the OP's daughter provide such footage to her bank?

Exodi

Manxman_in_exile said:

Exodi said:

soolin said:

JakkiB said:

My daughter has had her bank card used at various places & at ATMs with the card remaining in her possession.  Her bank has been contacted and refuse to help her claiming she has used her own card.  Is it possible her card could have been cloned?  She has reported the incidents to the police and Action Fraud and got the necessary ref numbers which have been passed to her bank, who still refuse to help.  Any advice or signposts of what to do & where to go for help now?

It is perfectly possible the card has been cloned , but the use of the card in an ATM suggests that someone has managed to both clone the card and obtain the pin. If it wasn’t for the ATM use then there are possibilities around a physical cloned card or a phone app but the ATM use is problematic.

Is the area the card being used in local at all? 

... Most of these cases are resolved by CCTV footage of the person withdrawing the money or purchasing the item. I think until your daughter (or the police more specifically) can provide this, then she will probably be hard-pressed to successfully convince the bank that someone else happened to use her card where she lived with her pin.

Do you really think the police will be bothered with the hassle of obtaining CCTV footage for this?  (I know that should be their job, but do you really think they'll do anything at all?)

Regarding CCTV footage of the ATM withdrawals, surely that's within the OP's daughter's bank's remit, isn't it?  How could the OP's daughter provide such footage to her bank?

Something loosely similar happened to my sister (though her card wasn't cloned, her card was physically stolen from her jacket pocket hanging off the back of a chair in a coffee shop and some card payments were made soon after).

She reported it to the police and the bank they were actually quite good about it. Within a few days they informed that they had CCTV evidence showing some random guy buying cigarettes and getting a haircut so they were happy to accept she was not at fault and she received the money back.

Albeit, she got a grilling from me for leaving her card hanging out on the back of her chair... !

Obviously I'm not naive that all police/banks operate as efficiently, and if not faced with an anecdotal experience like this, would share your view that "no chance the police will do anything about it". 

I'm not suggesting the OP's daughter is the one that goes vigilante acquiring footage.

born_again

soolin said:

JakkiB said:

My daughter has had her bank card used at various places & at ATMs with the card remaining in her possession.  Her bank has been contacted and refuse to help her claiming she has used her own card.  Is it possible her card could have been cloned?  She has reported the incidents to the police and Action Fraud and got the necessary ref numbers which have been passed to her bank, who still refuse to help.  Any advice or signposts of what to do & where to go for help now?

It is perfectly possible the card has been cloned , but the use of the card in an ATM suggests that someone has managed to both clone the card and obtain the pin. If it wasn’t for the ATM use then there are possibilities around a physical cloned card or a phone app but the ATM use is problematic.

Is the area the card being used in local at all? 

To use a UK ATM, requires a chip to be present on a card. Cloned card do not have these.

Banks can easily tell via systems when a genuine card is used.

From a Op perspective, & I hate saying this, but it is the usual case. Someone is taking & replacing the card. I guess these are all local ATM (or within easy distance)

Any children (they can easily pick up pin, as you never think of them doing this) who could be suffering peer pressure to do something like this?

JakkiB

Thanks for your comments.  This is a tricky case I know. We have yet to resolve it.

born_again

JakkiB said:

Thanks for your comments.  This is a tricky case I know. We have yet to resolve it.

In reality you need to pressure local police to go & look at any CCTV from the area of the ATM. That is the only real way to find out who it is. Action fraud will do nothing other than take report & pass to local police. AF do not investigate anything.

Other thing to do is, & I know this has worked for some people. Get the card cancelled & a new PIN issued. Do not change PIN back to old one. Keep this in a totally different place, or on person all the time.
Then leave old card in the normal place. If someone is taking it. It will disappear, never to return, as ATM will retain card. It is then a case of looking at who was around at that time.