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  • Bank Fraud

    Last week we had a phone call from the bank because they'd spotted some unusual activity on our account.

    I won't go into all the in's and out's of the 4 or 5 conversations with the very helpful people in the Royal Bank of Scotland's fraud department, but they were brilliant.

    It looks like some scumbag has somehow got hold of my card details and has been using them to try and purchase things. Luckily, they tried to buy things on the internet, but one transaction didn't go through. They tried to put the same transaction through over 10 times, which alerted the bank.

    We have been very lucky. They didn't get away with much money, and our wages hadn't gone into the account for this month before the bank spotted the fraud.

    However, what I wanted to alert you to was that the scumbags had
    • bought credits for an electoral roll checking company (which finance companies etc use for checking address details) to check people's details

    and
    • never spent anything over about £60 or £70, so that in a quick look at a statement, most people wouldn't notice the money going.


    Apparantly this is quite common, as if you check your bank statement regularly, you'd notice hundreds of pounds going missing; but if, like us, you have your bills etc on direct debit, or shop online, you might not be alerted to a £40 transaction until the end of the month.

    The bank have said that my details could have been pulled from an internet supplier I had ordered with (e.g. Amazon, Tesco, Next) by an unscrupulous employee; or skimmed off my card in a shop. I suspect they have been taken from the internet somehow.

    Please make sure you check your account/statement regularly and dispose of all your confidential waste somewhere secure! I dread to think what would have happened if these scum had cleared our bank account of our wages etc.
    Last edited by OverWyreGrower; 18-09-2007, 12:28 PM.

  • #2
    Thanks for the warning OWG. My Mother in law recently had a £90 transaction on her credit card which she didn't make. After about 3 months of "investigation" she got her money back but there was no follow up to find the culprits. For small sums they just don't seem to bother so these bandits can get away with it. Glad it all worked out OK for you.

    From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

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    • #3
      That's scary. Thanks for the warning. I used to check my statements religiously, but having gone "paperfree" with an online account, I now rarely do. Just going to go and have a little peek now.
      All gardeners know better than other gardeners." -- Chinese Proverb.

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      • #4
        I use Microsoft Money and regularly download transactions from the bank - all automated and self-reconciling. Any unexpected transaction would be noticed straight away, mercifully.

        If anything, online accounts are easier to verify as you can see the full transaction list every day - we have to, if only to be aware of any unexpected transactions that could slip us into overdraft (you know, bank charges, that direct debit that you had forgotten and so on)!

        KK

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        • #5
          I'm better at checking the office accounts than my own. I used to know near enough to the penny what should be in my bank account, but in these days of everything on direct debit it's not so easy, and as long as it looks near enough I often don't bother to do an itemised check. It's OK if Direct Debits are a fixed monthly amount, but with variable things like phone bills it somehow seems too much trouble. MUST MAKE MORE EFFORT!!

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          • #6
            what i was advised to do and did it is go along to see your local freindly bank type person is to create a second acount just for internet use IE- EBAY and the like with instructions not to pay anything unless enough funds in the acount and it works the card never goe's out of the house so it works for me hope this helps jacob
            What lies behind us,And what lies before us,Are tiny matters compared to what lies Within us ...
            Ralph Waide Emmerson

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            • #7
              Jacob, great idea. Specially if you take advantage of a good deal on the card, like £4 back for every £100 you spend
              http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/car...k-credit-cards
              (good site)
              All gardeners know better than other gardeners." -- Chinese Proverb.

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              • #8
                OWG sorry to hear of your tale of woe, OH had almost same thing happen, apart from the fact that they had about £1300 out of his account. Barclays at no point in our worried dealings with them did they once say sorry- we trusted them with our money, as it their job after all. The lack of 'sorry' made be as angry as the fact that some 'nasty' had stolen our money! All sorted ok in the bitter end. Barclays seemed to have the attitude of - oh well these things happen! grrrrrr.
                We check our account on line daily.....it's probably just a matter of time, but at least we are on guard now.

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                • #9
                  I usually go through the (internet) statements once a month. Will be doing it a bit more often now!

                  The stupid thing is that all the online retailers I've spent with are "well respected" ones that most people would trust, most of which I've been using for years with no issues at all (Tesco, Amazon, Next).

                  The woman at the bank said that they deal with this kind of fraud daily, and that the fraudsters are getting much smarter and cleverer, e.g. taking small amounts, not clearing bank accounts in one go etc.

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                  • #10
                    I had a similar thing with someone using my paypal account, the bank (and paypal) were great, sorted it out straight away with no quibbles. Now I check and then check again, you can't be too careful can you.
                    Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

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                    • #11
                      That's a frightening reminder to us all O.W.G. Apparently more & more people are getting ripped off due to so much personal information being available on the internet. Be careful about things like passwords, a lot of people use pets' names as passwords & then list these names on sites such as You Tube & My Space & crooks can get hold of all your details & guess your passwords too! Beware of emails from banks asking for any of your details too, my O.H. got one supposedly from the Royal Bank of Scotland the other day asking him to log on through a link & go through some details of his account to check some irregularities. Luckily he doesn't have an account with them so he knew it was a scam.
                      Into every life a little rain must fall.

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                      • #12
                        I run a number of web sites and have done so for some years now, so my email addresses are on a lot of people's lists. I reckon on getting one of these phishing emails every three days, on average.

                        The thing is, financial institutions should never ask you to follow a link in an email to a specific page of their site, and they should never ask for confidential information in the way these scams do.

                        One major giveaway with these scam emails is the actual link. If the link as it appears in the body of the email looks like it belongs an institution with which you deal, look at the status line in your email package when you hover over the link. It will probably say something very different.

                        If in any doubt. Don't follow the link, but type in at your browser the address you normally use to look at your bank etc. stuff.

                        Another thing - there are a lot of emails claiming you have a postcard, message or greeting from a friend or relative. Again, not to be trusted. These links take you God-knows-where and will possibly end up with you having something dodgy on your PC.

                        Finally, don't open attachments to emails from unknown sources. If in doubt, email your contact and get them to confirm what they sent to you. A lot of bad stuff is now coming in what looks like Acrobat (pdf) files, image files and executables.

                        Like crossing the road, using the web is still pretty safe if you keep your eyes open.

                        KK

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                        • #13
                          Excellent advice Klever Keith....

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