Has anyone else been cloned?

[Mikey]

Now I don't mean as in dolly the sheep. I mean has anyone else had their credit card cloned? Found out yesterday that one of my credit cards had been cloned. Whoever was using it mind bought something and took it back for a credit!!! Didn't get that.

[PyreneesPlot]

They were hoping to get the refund paid in cash.

Bad luck Mikey - is it all sorted now? Card stopped?

[Mikey]

Yeah, bank is refunding what was spent, it wasn't loads about £450 bizarrely there were 3 home deliveries. Hopefully they'll catch them, I've been scratching my brain trying to think where they could have got my details from. Its not a card I use often, but does have a really high limit, so they could have gone to town. It took me 20 odd days to spot it.

[Glutton4...]

I've been cloned about three times!! Different cards, too. First time was local Filling Station with spy camera in ceiling - always put your spare hand over the key-pad people!

The other two were on-line transactions, and I think they were traced, too. Have to say I can't fault the Bank or Card Company on these occasions, they were efficient and polite. It took a while, and I was charged quite a lot of fees, but they were all refunded.

Can't understand why they'd get stuff delivered home though - maybe they didn't think it through!

[veggiechicken]

There's rotten, Mikey They sound a bit amateur with their refunds and home deliveries Hope they're caught!!

[Mikey]

I wondered if the card details had been sold on and the person who got it wasn't that bright!

Can't fault the card company at all, they asked if I was happy for the police to be involved, sure fire away.

I was watching the film 'Paul' the other night and it tickled me they were in a gas station picking up some crisps and the police officer said
"where are you from"
and they replied "England",
"hey you guys don't have guns".
"No its safer",
"well how are you supposed to shoot people?"

Not saying we have it right, but that made me chuckle.

[Samurailord]

The villains will have arranged to get stuff delivered to an empty property that they can get access to so there will be nothing to trace back to them.

This happened to us several years back when my stolen details were used to set up a credit account with a balance of £3.5K with Currys - they had lots of stuff delivered to a different address, but had the bills sent to me!

Bloody annoying - especially as Currys wouldnt give me credit in the past when I had asked


Andy

[chilli_grower]

Yes, twice now. £500 the first time, and a few hundred the second.

Both somehow done online.

These people are smart, and most will never get caught in my opinion....

Oddly, on both occasions, the police wanted nothing to do with it, and just said to ring the bank!

[alldigging]

No. I did have a strange credit made to one of my cards though. The bank hadn't got a clue who it was either so I got them to send me a new card.

The most fun we've had with credit cards was when the bank changed our pins without telling us when they sent us new cards. They told Nic when he spoke to them but they denied they changed my pin and gave me different nonsense each of the times I spoke to them.

[BertieFox]

The cloning if often going on in petrol station card machines which have been changed to read your card details. That had happened to some friends we were talking to yesterday. They lost around £5000 which was spent in Quatar where apparently you aren't asked for chip and pin.
Another fraud to look out for is money taken from your account with fraudulent direct debits. We had several hundred pounds taken for a car insurance company, a lottery ticket bought, and something to do with Tesco. Apparently all you need is someone's account name and number and the sort code, and anybody can set up a direct debit on someone else's account. If you don't regularly check your account and direct debit list you might find a lot of money gone before you notice. The bank is bound to repay you, but there must be many people who miss regular small payments being taken out.
The fraudster has often got what he wanted and long gone once people discover the fraud.

[Florence Fennel]

Twice. A couple of years ago someone tried to spend rather a lot of money at Domino Pizza with my credit card details (maybe they were planning a party) but it was refused and the credit card company contacted me just to check. Really good service. More recently I had two bus journeys in America and a small clothing purchase on my bank card. Luckily I use on-line banking and noticed within a week of the transaction (about £70 I think) and the bank refunded the money immediately and sent me a new card. It's worrying because if you don't bank on line it could be a while before you notice it. They're very crafty.

[SlugLobber]

The cloning if often going on in petrol station card machines which have been changed to read your card details. That had happened to some friends we were talking to yesterday. They lost around £5000 which was spent in Quatar where apparently you aren't asked for chip and pin.
Another fraud to look out for is money taken from your account with fraudulent direct debits. We had several hundred pounds taken for a car insurance company, a lottery ticket bought, and something to do with Tesco. Apparently all you need is someone's account name and number and the sort code, and anybody can set up a direct debit on someone else's account. If you don't regularly check your account and direct debit list you might find a lot of money gone before you notice. The bank is bound to repay you, but there must be many people who miss regular small payments being taken out.
The fraudster has often got what he wanted and long gone once people discover the fraud.

In some cases, this is due to error, with the person setting up an account giving the wrong account number. This happened to me a couple of years ago, now. Someone had opened up a BT account, in their name, but my bank details. The large companies (lots of utilities included) all subscribe to an automated direct debit system, whereby NOBODY checks the details, so despite the name not matching, the debit was authorised, on an account I didn't use often. So, for over a year, this one payment had been going out. Was a real pain to sort out, as BT kept asking for my account number, which of course I didn't have, because I didn't have an account - they were really thick about it. The bank (Lloyds) were trying to get me to chase BT. In the end I blew a gasket at Lloyds and told them if it wasn't sorted THAT DAY, I was taking my account elsewhere. I now make them send me paper statements every month (it was the mortgage account, so we only got one every year), despite two payments going in and one going out. I completely lost faith in all banking since then. What kind of muppetry system allows the setting up of direct debits without anybody authorising it? Knock yourself out, folks, pick a random set of numbers and set up all sorts of payments (just don't pick mine!!).

[BertieFox]

"What kind of muppetry system allows the setting up of direct debits without anybody authorising it? Knock yourself out, folks, pick a random set of numbers and set up all sorts of payments (just don't pick mine!!)."

Absolutely agree! In my case we are 90% sure it was deliberate fraud as it seems to be associated with a holiday letting company being hacked and bank account details stolen. But we often have to give people our bank account number, name and sort code so they can pay us by bank transfer. We asked the bank at the outset if this was safe and they said, 'No problem'. But as you say, anybody could use the details to set up a DD.

In the good old days, you had to submit a signed form to the company setting up your DD. Now you can do it over the phone and they don't bother to check the details.

Our bank, Santander, won't seem to consider notifying account holders when a new DD is set up; quite why, I don't know, as it would be an easy thing to do with modern IT technology. They tell me fraud on this is at a low level! Doesn't help if you find out you've been paying out money from your account for somebody else's gambling habit for nine months though!

I'm glad the BBC's 'Moneybox' programme has just done an item on this, but I doubt if it will bring any changes.

[Bren In Pots]

We had this last month with our Debit card over a weekend 3 £10 payments were taken for phone top-ups, luckily we spotted it contacted the bank and they refunded us and sent out new cards and pins.
Bank said 'they' often try taking out small amounts to see if it get spotted before 'they' hit your account big time.

[Feral007]

I think they only make small amounts go out of your account at a time as they are less likely to be checked with smaller amounts.

TG I haven't had this problem yet. Mind you if they got money out of my accounts I'd want to find them and ask how, because I don't have enough money to go round as it is. Scary tho.

Those paywave cards annoy me. And the banks won't give you any other sort now. All new ones are paywave. They might only be able to spend $35 a go, but in 10 stores that's still $350.