Credit Card fraud

[lou 26]

My Dad went to get petrol today and when he went to pay they refused his card. They phoned the card company who said the card had been stopped and that he needed to contact the card issuer. He phoned them as soon as he got home. They said that there were two transactions (totalling the best part of �600) that they were suspicious of and had stopped the card. One was some site in Germany that theyd spent 400 and odd pounds on and the rest was spent somewhere else! Not a problem, Dad told them it was nothing to do with him or my Mom and they wont have to pay it.

My question is though, How do these swines get the card number etc to be able to use it?????? Its worrying to say the least!

[Ethel]

Many different ways of doing this - and it is good to be aware of them.

Some retailers (petrol stations, restaurants, shops and so on) or their employees have skimming devices. These are very small, hand held swipe machines - when the card is passed over for payment, the employee quickly swipes it which copies all the information. Then he watches the pin being keyed in, or uses a remote camera to record the transaction.

Thieves can put devices into cashpoint machines which work in the same way - copy the information and they get the pin by either looking over the shoulder or by small hidden camera.

Over the phone transactions give all the information necessary to make further transactions if the employee is dishonest.

This information could have been harvested months ago, making it very difficult for your father to pinpoint any possible transaction that could be responsible.

[lou 26]

Thank you for your reply Ethel. i will pass that on to my parents. My moms really worried about it even though they dont have to pay it but its still of concern to her

[briar-rose]

Sadly Ethel this is becoming common. Happened to me too. Found some spyware'd got into the puter & tracked online purchases. My details were traced to someone in the Netherlands, who was then passing info to someone in Poland. Luckily I have IT experts as friends. With their help, I got my money back from the bank. In case this happened to your dad - make sure your puter's as protected as can be, and scan regularly.

[RogeDodge]

The bottom line here is to always hide your PIN number when entering and not to let your card go out of your sight.

Your Dad will have had a new card issued, so any fraudsters will have to get hold of these details all over again so the clock has effectively been reset. Ensure that he hides his PIN (being mindful of cameras in the ceiling or in charity boxes etc.) and a similar attack will be avoided.

I now pay cash only for petrol and hide my PIN when withdrawaling cash.

Cheers
R

[amonty1144]

I have to say, I now use cash for most of my purchases and also keep a debit account with nothing in it, when I want to spend I top up the account. The account can't go overdrawn so it keeps the fraudsters at bay.

Also tell them never to reply to emails or phone calls that ask for the pin numbers.