Grrr Credit card fraud!

[Incy]

Went to our local shop yesterday to discover my card was refused. As I have plenty of credit this took me by surprise so I called customer services today to find out what was going on.
It seems some low-life had somehow copied our card and was using it online to try and by pay as you go top ups amongst other things.
Thankfully the credit card company spotted that this was unusual ( we both have contracts on our phones) and started refusing all transactions so only one actually went through.
The upshot is that our cards are now cancelled and we will have to wait 7-10 days for new ones to arrive.
We have been trying to work out where it was copied and have our suspicions as one of our local shopkeepers told my OH the other day that a local petrol station had been done for exactly this type of card fraud. Lots of smallish transactions to hopefully avoid detection. As we bought petrol there just over a week ago and all our other transactions have been with 100% trustworthy shops.........makes you wonder.
Frankly I wonder what goes through these peoples heads when they are helping themselves to other people's hard earned cash

[piskieinboots]

Rotten luck Incy

It does appear that a large percentage of these nasties happen through service stations, not sure of the logistics of this.

It happened to Snowdrop's card a while back, ever since I check our online accounts daily

[Incy]

I am very grateful that our credit card provider's sytem flagged it so quickly. It could have been a lot worse. I may well be only using cash for fuel from now on though.

[piskieinboots]

get a cashback credit card that you only use for petrol, if you don't get skimmed you will get cash back on your gas, if you do get skimmed the CC company have to pick up the back behaviour

[OllieMartin]

I was under the impression that you're covered for credit card fraud and that you can get all the money back. Or am i wrong?

[piskieinboots]

I believe you are correct Ollie - if it is a credit card you are covered, if it is a delta type I think you have to jump through mega hoops to prove to the bank it was not 'you'

[Incy]

You are correct Ollie. It will show up on my bill until the fraud department have confirmed it as fraud at which point it will be removed. Piskie we have a tesco card which gives us clubcard points. We always pay in full each month so incur no charges. That's why it's so irritating to be without it for up to 2 weeks

[Headfry]

Happened to us too, at a petrol station. Emptied our account just after payday! complete nightmare.
Good luck Incy, hope all goes well.

[Rhona]

We've had this happen to us three times now, someone tries it on and the bank stop the card; most recently two weeks ago. I shop loads online but try to always use reputable places and I have the bank verification thing when I pay.

It's annoying to go without your cards for a few days but I look on it as an opportunity to prevent me from pointless shopping, which I can be prone to indulging in.

The only time it's bothered me much is when it happened right at the start of a holiday. In a very rural bit of Portugal, cash only villages, no access to our cards...we managed somehow but can't quite recall how. I suspect we had enough for a bottle of wine anyway so didn't break into too much of a sweat...

[Incy]

Thanks Headfry. Customer services have been really good and thankfully only one £30 transaction went through so not the end of the world. I just hope they get the people who did it. I am in the fortunate position where this kind of sum is not a problem but I know that plenty of people would find it pretty painful to have to wait on it being refunded!

[Incy]

We've had this happen to us three times now, someone tries it on and the bank stop the card;

It's annoying to go without your cards for a few days but I look on it as an opportunity to prevent me from pointless shopping, which I can be prone to indulging in.

That's really bad to have it happen 3 times! I love your money saving philosophy though

[Hilary B]

Cloning of cards does seem to happen at petrol stations, and there is another factor the stations that do it mostly have in common, concerning the ..origins.. of those working there/running the place. A very unfortunate fact, which makes a lot of people look very hard at those serving in the petrol station.
Lots of those involved in such fraud fit description X. That doesn't mean that people fitting description X are all engaged in fraud, but some folk react as if that association applied....

[OllieMartin]

That's exactly how stereotypes of any kind occur I suppose. If every time you met someone with blue eyes they smelled funny, you'd start to assume that "everyone with blue eyes smells funny" even though you haven't met all of them. And although that's an unfair way to make opinions about people, it's also the same way we learn anything and the way we benefit from experience.
So I agree with you Hilary, whilst it definately doesn't mean that all people of description X do this, you definately start to form an opinion about them.
If you're factually statistically more likely to have fraud commited against you by a particular type of person, is it racist to treat them differently when handing your credit card over? I think not, personally I think it's logically advisable.

[Incy]

Sadly you are both right. And the people working at this particular service station do fit description x. Luckily we have a number of very honest community spirited folk around us who also fit description x but would never dream of doing something like this.

[SlugLobber]

A service station very local to me got done for the same thing. They did fit description 'X' as you put it. Shame, really, because it makes it so hard for those foreigners to fit in when they ARE straight. Which is most of them, but of course, you don't hear good about ANY type of person, only the bad!