I can't believe it! Somebody has stolen our credit card details and tried to make purchases for £2000 ! Thakfully VISA picked up on unsual purchases/activity and called us. I just don't get HOW it happened. We are VERY careful online, I never give out details unless on encrypted pages from reputable companies I have good experience of, would never fall for phising scams. and in fact we don't use the card much. Mainly for the vets! This is scary! If we don't know how it happened how do we stop it from happening again....... The card has been cancelled now and a new one will be issued.

The latest *scare* is when you get rid of an old PC ..these can be shipped abraod (usually Nigeria) and the details all stolen off the hard drive. There is a HUGE scam going on using peoples details taken off old PCs

Then of course, there is the rubbish that you chuck out ...always make sure that you shred anything that has any personal details on it

Finally, it is possible for someone to clone your card when you make a card payment, especially if you remain seated and they take the card off (like at a resteraunt)

Thank goodness VISA picked up on it :)

My OH was recently notified by his credit card company that there was some suspicious activity on his card and that his account was suspended.

Now, my OH is super-aware of the potential for fraud as he works in the IT industry.  He rarely shops online and had only made one small purchase on that card in months (£30 spent on Amazon).

When he rang the credit card company to see what was going on, they told him that somone had tried to amke a purchase for $1 and that this rang alarm bells with them.  Apparently, fraudsters randomly generate card numbers and then test them by making small insignificant purchases and they had happened to hit upon OH's card no.  Once they have confirmed that they've hit a winning combination, then large purches will be made. Luckily, the quick action of the issuing company meant that no additional purchases were able to be made on the card and the card was cancelled.

It's scary to think that you can do everything reasonable to safeguard yourself and STILL fall victim to fraud :(

Same happened with our Bank details, somebody tried to use our card twice in one day one for £1900 for airline tickets and another £2000 for concert tickets, thankfully we had set up safe measures on our bank account that if we intended to spend over a certain amount on one purchase we would notify our bank the day before, so luckily both purchases were refused.  Bank cards cancelled and new ones sent out within 5 days.

We haven't a clue where they got our details from either.

Interesting Sharon! Almost exactly the same! £1800 for airline tickets! Then it was bikes, and AOL!

Yes VISA said they will now call us if there ever is ANY larger sum put through.

I did dump an old PC this year BUT was so paranoid my dad actually removed the hard drive, took it apart, whacked it with a hammer and scratched all over the surface with a screwdriver. :)

The other strange things though -only place we've given the card to somebdy has been the vets, and that's with us standing right next to them. We never go out to eat or anything like that. And we always shred personal stuff before binning them. WEIRD!

Do you use it for petrol?

We had our credit card cloned earlier in the year - but this was probably done in a restaurant as they also had our PIN number At the same time there was a scam going on involving the garage near where I work - the garage was closed down temporarily while the police arrested several members of staff - this was the most common type of cloning (no PIN number) :(

Daisy

Same thing happened to my card a couple of months ago - luckily HSBC noticed that someone tried to use it in India and Greece about 5 minutes apart - I was told that it was a petrol station who were "selling" on details.  Although the lady said it was unusual to ever find out where details were copied she said it was happening all over everyday - and was not unusual nowadays! - I only found out when I went to use a self serve checkout at Asda - to my horror the machine announced to about everyone within a 20 metre radius "card declined contact Help Desk!".. "card declined contact Help Desk!".."card declined contact Help Desk!"........

I had someone win something I was selling on ebay, he requested it was sent to Nigeria, but the money never arrived in my paypal account although the guy insisted he had paid it.  Two days later I had an email from ebay saying that this person had stolen someone's id on ebay and not to send them anything   I assume that was stolen from someones hard drive.

I asked hubby and he said yes he does use it for petrol, BUT these days of course you never hand the card over, you put it in the machine and type your pin number in.

This exact same thing happened to me in May this year. My card had been 'used' to buy £2500 worth of airline tickets in India. :rolleyes:

Barclaycard were brilliant though, but it did take them till September to sort it all out. Never mind though we didn't have to pay anything that wasn't ours.

It's really unsettling though isn't it?

Dawn R.

I was watching Watchdog and they were saying that they found lots of customer details in bags outside banks that could be used to to steal your id.
Mary

I'm a bit shocked at how many on here have had problems with their details being stolen

We are amongst them - only in our case it was a bit different as a Royal Mail bag was stolen with our new cards in one of the envelopes. As soon as RM notified us, we contacted our bank, to ask if the cards were likely to have been in the bag, but were told almost certainly not. Then lo and behold our card was refused and we found over 2 thousand pounds worth of items had been bought. This was a couple of years ago now.

I'm always concerned about this, but it seems there is actually no way we can protect ourselves for certain - it's very scarey.

Lindsay
x

Yep it is rife isn't it, my friend called me up last week, some cheeky blighter had tried to book a holiday with her card.  Luckily her card company had phoned to check before processing, thank goodness the card companies at least are doing that, they do try to stop this from happening, but we all seem to be in danger of it, my father-in-law is always going on about checking daily all your accounts I used to laugh at his paranoia, but he is so right now.  Glad they didn't get away with it, I think we might have to go back to keeping our money under the mattress. :-D

Now this is very interesting -see the pattern emerging here? Most of us seem to have had an experience with airline tickets being booked!! Wonder why? How do they do it? They must go into a trave agent I assume, because I know that airlines will NOT normally post out tickets to any other address than that of the card holder. I've found that many a time -my dad wanted to buy me tickets but couldn't do it as they would have had to be posted out to him and not to me.

.

Call Centres abroad are now deemed to be one of the biggest threats. Quite often we don't even know we are talking to them.

Most of the Insurance company's are in India ect; My son's Car Insurance Company gave us a lot of grieve because they said they had not recieved there Direct Debt payment through the Bank and insisted if we didn't pay it with a card over the phone they would cancel his Insurance
there and then. Losing the £1000.00 he had already paid. I did take over the call the discussion did get very high rate. But! still refused to give them the card number over the phone. You ask them for there name and can never get the same person twice. We both went round to Nat-West who took all the details and rang them in front of us. That conversation got quite heated.
They were still insisting on the payment by card over the phone. After a discussion the Bank decided to pay the whole amount oustanding by Bankers draft. Do-not trust them!!
The Bank was horrified at there attitude over trying to get the card Number

I had £2300 stolen out of an online bank account - obviously I never gave out any details of passwords etc. And needless to say, I no longer bank online. Someone had obviously somehow hacked in and got the passwords... And all they need to order stuff is your card number and expiry date I think. Taken by someone unscrupulous when ordering over the phone, read over your shoulder? I have been told never to let a debit/ credit card go out of my sight. My aunt refuses to use them and pays for everything in cash

Barclaycard are very quick to detect unusual patterns of use and, in the middle of arranging our recent holiday to Spain, we got a call from their Fraud Detection section who reported that someone was buying European rail travel and booking hotels in Seville on our card. Us, as it happens! But we were very impressed at the speed and thoroughness of their action.

My one daughter always rings her bank and tells them when she is going abroad on holiday, Dates and where to.
My other daughter only this week went on to her line account with LLoyds Bank to cancel a couple of Direct Debits, and the site even though it was a secure site, locked, asked for her card number.
She rang the Bank striaght away to be told somethink was not right as they never ask for your card Number ever! They were going to look into it. You see these people could just take £20.00 out off your account that you might not notice, then they know they have the right no. to take what they want.

I had a strange one the other day with my phone company.  I had been having a go at a radio competition on Hallam FM and had rung about 15 times trying to get through  (Failed miserably!!).  About 2 hours later, my phone company (the one with "The Hoff" in the adverts) rang me and said that because I'd made a lot of calls that day and had spent £35 on these calls so I would have to make a payment up front.  She asked for my card number to make a payment and then asked for the 3 digit number and I reacted rather strongly and refused.  She then said I would be cut off.  I straight away got onto BT and switched.  Anyway, I got my phone bill and the whole of the phone bill including line rental didn't add up to £30.  So I rang the company and the chap said they never ask for an interim payment.  So just who and what they were and how they knew I don't know, but be warned.

What competition was it? I listen to Hallam. I was on it a few weeks ago when it was a football thing. They asked you and someone else a question and the nearest to the correct answer won a surround sound home entertainment system, a small fridge full of beer! I didnt win!

I was going for the final voice on Big John's voicemail, but I couldn't get through.  Well done - at least you got through, that's an achievement in itself!!

Hubby had someone phone him pretending to be the credit card company and asking for conformation of the credit card details (incl. the 3 digit no. on the back!), saying that the card had been maxed out!  He luckily phoned me and I phoned the company.  This was a load of rubbish!!  If ever a company phones you asking for details, tell them you will phone them back, this way you will know if the call is genuine!

As things stand at the moment we don't stand a chance

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6093600.stm

This was on watchdog a couple of weeks ago. It wasnt just one bank it was all of them.
Mary

One of the Tesco cash machines apparently had a false front on it and a few people's bank account details were taken. How can you tell when a machine has a false front on it?