card fraud, how?

[Snidpan]

Luckily I had the total refunded. Had a holiday in New York in March, then yesterday $100 was taken from my Monzo, twice in 2 minutes, in Pittsburgh, a Food Mart. Sounds like cash withdrawals, would be too odd to do shopping and have it come to $100 twice in 2mins.
So what might I have done wrong? I didn't use a cashpoint/ATM, just restaurants and a couple of shops, chip and PIN style. How can I, or anyone, avoid this, as I was quite worried I would lose the money, through being at fault for some reason. Is Monzo more at risk, being a new company?

this is a lot quieter than AIBU

What do Monzo say ?

vulnerable through use of mag strip, as US don't really have contactless and chip n pin

More likely it was cloned in one of the restaurants when they took it away to enter the bill

Some US places have Chip&Pin and contactless

but the ones with swipe and screen signature are utterly insecure as the signature is not checked.

The US is years behind the EU on card security

Card security in the US is rubbish. They never look at signatures (they usually give the card back before you sign in a restaurant) and seldom use chip and pin. They always take the card away, which has been a no no in the UK for years. For credit cards in shops they often don’t require a signature or a pin. We’ve had multiple frauds on one credit card in the year we’ve been in the US. Banking in general seems about a decade behind the UK. Canada seems more up to date with chip and pin.

Your card was probably cloned by a staff member in a restaurant and details sold on to a third party who have just tried their luck with it 5 months later.

Card security in US is appalling compared to UK. I was in US recently and, to prove a point, my kids signed my name on receipts on numerous occasions without anyone raising it as an issue! Ridiculous when you think about it and rather worrying.

I don't think you did anything wrong, just unlucky and glad to see you've had a refund.

Monzo has had it hammered home by other banks that they need to be able verify if a card mag strip is cloned or not. The same type of transaction would have been declined automatically by HSBC or Barclays

The same type of transaction would have been declined automatically by HSBC or Barclays
Not if it was in the USA as they would have had no way of knowing because the machines are so poor.

Yes even in the US. There is technology available to compare a mag stripe with the one from an issued card to spot clones- big global banks use this already.

But surely that can only be spotted at the machine the card is swiped through
and if the retailer is using a low quality machine
(and criminals will know which retailers to choose)
then the transaction will clear

the total lack of checking signatures or using PIN numbers is atrocious after all

It’s spotted during the transaction authorisation that goes to the bank. In the US many places don’t use machines at all - some small businesses still trace the card in triplicate

I know.
I landed back in the UK this morning.

A few years ago someone tried to take $400 from my bank via an atm in Pittsburgh
My bank stopped it as there very clever IT system had picked up that I was in Waitrose 10 mins before
I have never been to Pittsburgh
Ive had a few dodgy transactions on my account over the years , I have always had them refunded

ListeningQuietly Wed 14-Aug-19 16:08:22
The same type of transaction would have been declined automatically by HSBC or Barclays
Not if it was in the USA as they would have had no way of knowing because the machines are so poor.

See my previous post, mu bank declined it

Pelirocco
The pattern recognition software is entirely separate from the cloning recognition.
My card had a transaction blocked in a shop in my home town that I have never visited because it did not match my pattern.

If a cloned card is swiped through a magnetic strip machine in a store, the bank will not know its a clone.

vulnerable through use of mag strip, as US don't really have contactless and chip n pin

They do? Everywhere.

@BloomingHydrangea strange that no shops use it then

I'm just back from the US. I'd say that approximately 2 out of every three of our transactions did not require chip and pin, our card was frequently taken away from our table in restaurants, and not once in 3 weeks did anyone check our signature after swiping our card. No fraudulent transactions yet, but I'll keep checking!