Well it’s finally happened. There was an attempt to defraud me!

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I’m actually stunned. Within the space of an hour I’ve seen tens of transactions for uber and uber eats come up on my phone for approval. My notifications were going off like crazy. Of course no approval from me because it wasn’t me! Froze the card immediately but they kept trying (pops up as declined because card was frozen).

I’m quite tech savvy - I never click on links, I don’t give out my details, I don’t even use my card details only Apple Pay for this exact reason. I had to AI how the hell this happened and it could have potentially been a bot that goes through thousands of combinations of numbers until they get a match and then use uber to test it as it has very low authentication mechanism for transactions. Then they move on to bigger stuff.

Well thank god for my bank! I stood on the tube frantically clicking ‘DO NOT APPROVE ITS NOT ME’

It happens all the time unfortunately 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s never happened to me! I think I would be quite shaken. I know it’s really common, but it’s still absolutely horrible. I’d feel like something nasty had just reached into my life.

It’s a strange feeling when it happens. I had a small ish one a couple of years back with Amazon Prime. It was £100 and a bunch of random items including toothpaste and garden soil which was clearly not me. I went for it like a dog with a bone and both Amazon and big bank were very good about it. Now, one of them let loose by mistake the fraudulent buyers address. I’m still mindful to send a note with a print of their order but equally who knows if they are the wrong party

I had an attempted fraud a few years ago but my bank caught it because it was an unusual transaction (for me). The criminals had first tried a low value one from a shop then tried a £350 one. Because of the kind of purchase it was completely uncharacteristic and my bank sent me a text to confirm. I rang them on another phone and learned they had also tried a £900 one. The bank froze the card and sent me a new one.

I jad it happen many years ago. Went to get petrol and the card declined. Thankfully ot was our local garage who knew us and we agreed I could go to our bank to sort it out. (I knew there was available balance) turned out therr was someone who had spend £2000.00 in a couple of hours that morning (with more attempted). Bank had stopped when it hit that amount as usual activity.

Took me 1.5 hours before I returned to garage with the cash payment. They were really good anout it and actually just pleased it had stopped due to the issue.

Bank was great about it we got new cards and pins and for a ehile they checked any purchases over £50.00 (this was before phone pay)

It really made me a lot more aware.

I know, you just never think it would be you!

They’re getting so much more sophisticated now, glad the banks are on top of it! Who knows where it might have ended

It’s interesting because in my case nothing was actually billed (it wasn’t done through my uber account so nothing to query with uber) and because the transactions didn’t actually go through there were no transaction numbers so the bank said we’ll send you a new card but there’s nothing to report / can’t share any info

I work in fraud for a bank, it's constant. So many different types of fraud too.

Do you find your job quite interesting? I love a bit of digging / investigative work!

I was on a 30 minute train ride and got a call from Nationwide asking if I’d lost my debit card. Sure enough I’d dropped it (or had it stolen) at the station. The thieves had tried to use it at local shop for alcohol and Nationwide had picked up the activity after their third swipe. Amazing! Quite impressed they are alert to that sort of low level activity.
Was able to cancel the card and get the £80 or so refunded which is also impressive.

I don't actually investigate fraud, I work with the fraud teams to help improve their systems and processes so see a lot across the board. It is very interesting though. There is a also a lot of regulation around fraud and how banks protect the customers so we are always busy 🤣

Sorry this happened to you OP. Did you know in the uk about the 159 number? It’s one that is designed for reporting bank scams - any of those “call this number and it will take you to your bank to confirm” can be thwarted and if you dial that number you can then get a choice to go through to your bank.

It happened to DP many years ago, but he only found out when his bank tried to take almost £2000 to cover his credit card bill (he has it set up to pay the balance every month.) He checked his credit card statement and there were dozens of purchases from businesses in England, like furniture shops and wine shops that he didn’t recognise. We’re in NI. At least nowadays you can get an alert. My friend had a call from her bank while we were wandering round a local park a few years ago with our children, asking if she had just withdrawn cash from a machine in India. The bank sorted it out very quickly for her.

This is why I keep just a small amount in my accounts with cards so if it does happen the losses will be minimal.

What do you do with the rest of your money?!

I’m not trying to scam you I promise 😂😂

Never heard of it! Looking it up now.

You get your money back if it's Fraud. The bank should pay it back to you and then investigate and try to get any money back, if not it's written off by the bank.

I just looked it up - it’s if someone calls you. It was a different kind of scam but good to know

I kept getting phone calls from my bank saying they needed to talk to me about fraudulent activity on my CC account. Then text messages. However, no transactions on my account so I assumed the calls and texts were scammers.
I phoned bank to tell them people were making calls pretending to be them. It actually was the bank! They said people are so suspicious nowadays they wont answer their calls for fear of scams.
That time was a low attempt of about £20.
The most i have had takem fraudulently was £3900 on CC. My address was also used so the bank think another company had a data breach and my details came from there rather than the pot luck system they use nowadays. I didn't have an alert about that, for some reason my brain woke me in the middle of the night to check my CC!!

This happened to me last year with several Uber transactions.

I’d like to say the bank were on the ball but it was seemingly above the capabilities of the online fraud department 🙄

I had to tell them repeatedly that it wasn’t me - I don’t even have an Uber account!! (I did eventually make a complaint and got compensation from the bank.)

That’s really annoying.
My bank needs approval for everything now when I have to enter my card details online. They never just approve it. It used to be every now and again but now it’s literally every transaction so things have definitely changed (at least with my bank)

I lost my bank card about 4 years ago now, maybe more. Noticed quickly and froze it, ordered a new one etc. They hadn’t tried to purchase anything so all good. 2 days later I get a notification for transaction declined, they’ve tried to use it on a bus in Exeter apparently.

I still get notifications every now and then that they’ve tried again! Always on a bus in Exeter. So I always imagine some daft buffer flipping through a load of bank cards to pay £2 bus fair, how embarassing for them.

No idea how it got to Exeter in the first place as I live nowhere near it.

If you get calls and there are no transactions it's means the bank are preventing the payments going through but there is still fraud occurring. You were right to be wary of calls though, we have fraudsters ringing our customers, they even have to local accent where our call centre is based. The best thing to do is call the banks fraud number from their website to discuss any issues rather than from a phone call to you. The big scam at the minute is telling you there is fraud and you need to move your money urgently to a new bank account, they provide the details! Never do this!

Did you physically pay somewhere? Scanners are still going from what I heard. Device attached on top of payment device. I remember when they found numerous of these on cash points and we used to hit cashpoint parts where you put a card to see if anything moved before putting card in.