Our bank account has been cleared out

[lougle]

Today my DH said 'why do we have no money??'
I told him not to be so ridiculous, because we have been working really hard to save money and build up a buffer in our account. So I looked at our bank account: available balance £14.

Someone has used almost £2000 on Next and Foot Asylum purchases, with a pizza and a dessert order thrown in .

The irony is that I never buy from Next because we can't afford for me to buy new clothes. I only ever buy from charity shops or (very rarely) Primark. So the fraud claim is very easy to prove. That and the fact that the man on the phone from the bank had to tell me what Foot Asylum is .

The transactions were all in the last day or so, and were all made using DH's card. We also had a letter today from Next, addressed to a man we've never heard of, thanking him for advising them if his change of address. So Next have given us a fraud case ID number and have put a block on account applications from our address. The bank fraud team will contact us tomorrow.

How gutting. We're lucky that DD1's DLA gets paid into a different account, so we can use that for a few days and reimburse it when we get reimbursed by the bank. If it got paid into the same account we'd be absolutely done for.

[hanbee]

Once had some dufus at a takeaway pizza place steal DHs card details and buy him home insurance from Tesco. Lord knows why Tesco approved it with different names and addresses! The money was returned very quickly and the stupid thief had given them his name and address. I imagine he found it rather tricky to get any sort of insurance from then on!

[Bolograph]

In the same way you don't need experts to "prove" DNA fingerprinting in every court case it's used as evidence.

No, but you need them to attest to the evidential integrity of the chain leading from the crime scene to the DNA analysis, which would be a similar problem for any application of a blockchain. You may have noticed that, blockchain or no, Bitcoin theft and fraud is hardly unheard of how the fuck did anyone take "Magic The Gathering Online Exchange" seriously?

[Woobeedoo]

I've had my card cloned twice - once at a restaurant where the waitress walked off with my card and disappeared for several minutes before returning it, and then at a petrol station.

The first I knew about the first cloning was when I was home off sick from work and got a phone call from the bank asking if I was in a BMW dealership in South London. I said I wasn't. "oh, well someone is trying to purchase goods over £2000 using your card - we'll stop the purchase and cancel your card".

The petrol station cloning involved lots of little purchases - some from petrol stations (oh the irony), mobile phone top-ups and then flights to Germany. With this cloning numerous people were targetted and it was mentioned in the local paper. After investigation it was found to be it minimum wage staff who were being paid cash in hand so no bloody records being asked by a gang to scan cards for extra money.

[Bolograph]

I said I wasn't. "oh, well someone is trying to purchase goods over £2000 using your card - we'll stop the purchase and cancel your card".

This was presumably pre-C&P? It's still possible to make a mag stripe clone of a UK card, but any shop that accepts it does so at their peril.

The best thing you can do, as LH has suggested, is remove the CV2 code: last three digits on the signature strip on most cards, four digits on the front of Amex cards, having written it down somewhere else. That makes use online virtually impossible, even for someone who has a copy of the magstripe and both sides of the card and copies of your statements.

[lougle]

We'll do that, I think.

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

I'd be worried I'm making my card obsolete by scrapeing off the cv2 numbers. Will shops / other face to face payments be accepted with a damaged card?

[Idontneedanotherhero]

I once worked at a computer company several years ago, and someone bought a laptop online, and supplied an address and delivery slot. I subsequently realised the card was stolen and called the police to tell them that someone at X address would be receiving stolen goods at X time the following day and they said sorry, they wouldn't deal with that! I was flummoxed!

[LurkingHusband]

I'd be worried I'm making my card obsolete by scrapeing off the cv2 numbers. Will shops / other face to face payments be accepted with a damaged card?

One of the lesser known rules of C&P is that merchants should no longer handle your card (why would they need to ?). Obviously brain-dead terminal placement making it impossible for wheelchair users to manage (as MrsLH says, hurrah for contactless) excepted. So no one would notice.

To be honest, if anyone did comment, I would be immediately suspicious - why were they even looking ?

[Bolograph]

Will shops / other face to face payments be accepted with a damaged card?

When would they see? Given the number of people on another thread who are sharing cards between husband and wife (ie, name and/or honorific probably obviously wrong), a small detail like the CV2 is neither here nor there. And as LH says, they shouldn't be looking anyway.

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

I am disabled and people often have to handle my card hence the worry.

[LurkingHusband]

I am disabled and people often have to handle my card hence the worry.

MrsLH has found contactless a boon.

When C&P was introduced, there was a FAQ somewhere which noted that the cashier should not have to handle your card. At the same time, there were discussions noting how a lot of smaller establishments (petrol stations in particular) were deliberately laid out to separate you from your card.

Once again, removing the CV2 is the best (and only) protection against having your card details lifted to be used after you leave the store.

I wonder if people using Apple/Android pay would be as happy allowing the assistant to take their phone as card ?

[Bolograph]

I am disabled and people often have to handle my card hence the worry.

Then just rub at the CV2 until it's "worn" to the point of unreadability.

Or get a phone and use Apple Pay. Much safer.

[LurkingHusband]

Or get a phone and use Apple Pay. Much safer.

Doesn't compute, unless you can use Apple pay on a Samsung/Sony/Nexus ...

[BrieAndChilli]

Our bank is pretty hot on fraud, they rang me a few years ago as someone tried to buy tyres in Germany whilst at the same time buy something in America! Then we had a load of PAYG transactions come out for about 4 different mobile companies, about 20x £20 which they also refunded immediately.
Then last pay day I made a load of transactions on line including about 20 transactions via Amazon for a couple of quid each so bank stopped my card until they could speak to me to make sure it was me spending the money

[Kr1stina]

Yes I had the same with Amazon . I made one transaction for several pairs of shoes in the sale but Amazon put them through as several transactions for , say £25 . I assume because they were sale goods they perhaps didn't have them all in stock , or because it was different sellers.

I also discovered that if you haven't bought anything from Amazon for while, they will put through a test of £1 first .

So my one purchase of 4 pairs of shoes turned into 5 transactions , One after the other , which caused an alert and block om my card .

Very annoying when you are in asda with three whining children and a trolley load of food but better safe than sorry .

[LurkingHusband]

It's possible to set Amazon up to use your bank account directly (like Paypal).