My credit cards been used fraudulantely over the last few days and I want to catch the feckers that did it.

[Nbg]

Thank god I bank with Lloyds is all I can say!

They have an automated service where if they think that you have "different" activity going on with your card, they call you up and list transactions for you to check.

The first one it listed was to a telecommunications company for £150 which was declined, it wasnt me so they put me through to the fraud dept and they listed all the transactions which were from the 3rd of this month.

They'd spent odd pounds here and there to a place online called Magazine Cafe, a pound to islamic relief???, £200 to a site that sells high street vouchers, stagecoach express???, Tescos and then the telecommunications one was Virgin online.

Now what I'm thinking is could these companies pass on the buyers details to the police?
I thought if I emailed or called Tesco and the voucher place, gave them the transaction details and my card number (which doesnt matter now as its cancelled) and see if they can provide an address?

I'm so shocked its happened and am really worried as to how they got my details. I always log out of sites, I dont save my details and we have anti spy and fraud stuff on the laptop.
Dh is saying now no more online shopping

It could be somewhere 'real' you have used your card.

I got loads of hassle and my debit card temporarily stopped a few years ago. I was grilled beyond belief in the Post Office when I tried to buy euros - the cashier was really embarrassed - and I had passport and driving licence as ID plus numerous other credit cards. I only got in unblocked by going into my bank.

I don't generally buy much online but when I got my bank statements I went through them carefully and the only unusual purchase I had made was at a (permanent) market stall selling fabrics. It made me wonder whether they have had a problem with cards being used at that merchant having a high level of fraud afterwards.

I know there are only a handful of places I have used it in "real" over the last few days and it was all in the same day.

I have emailed voucher express to see what they say.
I dont think they will pass on recipients details but I'm hoping they will to the police.

Have you used it in a petrol station recently?

I only ask because here there's been huge problems with credit card fraud at two garages in town (part of a large franchise) and it's been reported that it could well be a nationwide thing.

Then again, looking at the transactions they've made it does seem rather bizarre and indicates more an individual.

There's a few other things to check in terms of computer security - do you always check you have a locked padlock before entering credit card details? Do you use an unsecured wi-fi link? How often do you run your anti-spy and virus checks? Have you bought from any smaller companies recently online that might be "suspicious" (i.e. an unknown). Never ever email credit card details or password details.

Online shopping is generally safer than a lot of other methods (particularly giving the number over a telephone line or letting your card out of site at a restaurant) so I wouldn't worry too much on that score. Although if you really are concerned there are companies you can go through which give you a credit number valid only for a single transaction - not sure how much that costs you if anything though as I've never gone that route.

There are major scams in the UK at petrol stations....according to a programme I heard last week in Radio 4 it is mainly supporters of the Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka.

So blady annnoying!

I guess your chanes are very tiny!!!

Someone bought a vespa nearly 2K with my cc 3 years ago.... imagine my face when i saw my cc statement.... i thought hubby was giving me a big surprise for my bday! bah

RD, Its funny you should mention the petrol station.
I have used it at a station near my BIL's house. I remember at the time I paid, I was really cross because the guy who served me was on the phone and speaking in a different language. I didnt think anything suspicious of it just cross that he was talking on the phone when he should have been serving me.

It was only yestertday when dh pointed this out to me.
We've used that station alot but I've never seen that guy in there before.

I havent used any smaller sites either. I always use well known places.
We also have Norton and that runs a check of its own accord every other day I think it is.

The first few transactions are small because they are testing the card is still valid. Lloyds is good I agree at picking up on this stuff.

So, I guess in the petrol station they took your card and ran it through their scanner rather than you putting it into a pin machine right? That would be when it was cloned.

If this happens, report it to the fraud dept. The police force has started making arrests in this area.

But sadly you are not likely to get to personally kick their arses.

My husband's card was cloned in Covent Garden. He had taken the children out for the day and when it came to paying, they came to the table, he got out his card, they took his card and then bought the machine back for him to enter his pin. It was whilst they had taken the card that they used another machine under the counter to swipe his card to get his details. They do not need your pin to be able to use it if they use it online. We also had Stagecoach for some reason, Virgin telecoms, Tesco telecoms and Curry's. Curry's actually declinded it almost straightaway and refunded the money into the account but others did not. Our bank were brilliant though and within a week we were refunded all the money.

It was actually used in a chip and pin machine as I remember. In the petrol station that is.

Another thing! They paid £5 to use an internet site to try and trace my husband's details (full name, d.o.b). I cannot remember which one it is and have not got time to look it up now as off to work. Keep an eye out in your post for applications of some sort and also for goods you are invoiced for which you never ordered nor have received.

OMG RTB!

One thing that did concern me was when they enter the card details on to a site, they have to put on a name. Does it have to be mine? If so how the hell do they know that?!!!!!

Sounds like alot of the online places they used, would have a billing addy (which would correspond with your card security) and and alternative address to send to (the theifs). If they can trace the address the vouchers and mags were sent to..maybe that could help.

Thats what I was thinking WAN

That probably wasn't where it happened then, unless they swiped your card and then put it in the pin machine. BTW the trick is to have a camera fitted into the ceiling to capture your PIN.

My Dh's credit card was cloned in a petrol station using chip and pin last year... they tried to take about a thousand quid... they actually got £200 then the bank's fraud protection thingummy kicked in. We have made sure our cardguard subscription is up to date and use cash wherever we can. We got the money back in the end. NBG can you recover the money from the fraudulent transactions?

I thing thsat the problem will be that the crime is being committed against either the vendors or the credit card company, and not against you, so I'm not sure that the police will necessarily support any crime-detection that you might try. And you may find that the others are covered by insurance anyway.

Llyods have told that I wont incur any costs but we are covered by Sentinal too.

It really has blown my mind.
I was obviously not made to be a mastermind criminal lol.

True about the venors losing out. They are the ones that in most cases (from experience to the tune of £1.5k) have to take the hit!
I have worked in telesales and if you wanted something from me you'd get the third degree, or nowt !

My card was used fraudulently at the end of last year, and the details definitely came from online use. Partly cos I almost exclusively use it online, and partly because they had used a 'clone' (not an operational one, just a card that looked right) as ID to buy a mobile phone. Unfortunately for them Orange didn't send the bill to the billing address they gave, but to mine - but they clearly had my name, address, credit card details including security code, and email address. So definitely an online fraud rather than a real-world cloning.

I did get some info out of one of the retailers, cos it was a small mobile phone shop in Bradford, and it didn't seem to occur to him not to give me the info ... passed it all to the police, I gave a statement and haven't heard anything since, not that I really expected to. They'd (erm, the scammers, not the police) bought a plane ticket with the card, so it would have been easy enough to get them, I think, if anyone had been really keen!

I still use my replacement card for online shopping though, in fact if anything I'm encouraged to, cos Egg dealt with it very efficiently.

DCMB!

Blimey
its so common isnt it!

I've just been refuded by Lloyds aswell for fraud on my debit card.
Not a huge ammount, around £200 on a bunch of small transactions.
It does seems to be happening a lot recently.

Lloyds are very good at repaying you. I had my money back in my account in a couple of days.

Nbq, it frightened the LIFE out of me at the time, cos of the phone thing I was running around for days going 'omg, identity theft!' at anyone who'd listen, convinced that someone was going to commit some dreadful crime and identify themselves as me, and I would lose my job ... I was surprised at how much it upset me.

There was an article in the Times I think maybe Guardian about a frauddster who has written a bok about his life of crime (hop no-one buys it).

He worked in a mobile phone co and used to pretend to people who rang up to purchase that the cr card comapny had security questions to ask and that way he would get their answers to standard things like mother's maiden name, first school, first pet, etc. He jotted all those down with their cc details and then went on a spree.

I was very reassured last year when I used my credit card to book a work flight online - the same afternoon the bank rang me because they'd spotted an 'atypical transaction' and wanted to check it was really me spending £800 on an air ticket online.

They also got my sister into trouble when she'd had a private splurge on a designer handbag - rang her contact number (my parents' place) and spoke to my dad, who nearly got the card stopped as he couldn't believe she could possibly have spent £300 in Harvey Nichols as she was meant to be in Oxford studying for her finals...