Bank fraud

[Gary820]

Got a phone call from the wife today, she received a message and had a missed call, message said it was the bank and suspicious activities have been detected on our account. Not wanting to trust a text message and a voice mail she called the bank directly.
Well it was genuine and some absolute Twat has basically spent a whole load of our hard earned

The wife's card has been cloned at some point and someone went to town over a few days!!
Strangely out of all the transactions the ones that flagged up were cinema tickets and greggs on line ordering! Not the electrical goods and furniture all within 2 days!!
She's quite upset about it. The bank are sorting it and we've got to go through every transaction to see what's not ours then get the money back.
They've frozen the account for now while it's dealt with.

Could've done without that hassle that's for sure!!

 

[Dave_S]

To be fair Gary I would take some comfort from this - its a royal PITA, but at least it was picked up reasonably quickly. Had my credit card done a couple of times and both times the issuer was brilliant and apart from hassle, I did't lose anything.

 

[Shayne]

She shouldn't be upset it can happen to anyone , a fraudster stole from the bank and though its a nuisance and perhaps a bit of a shock its not personal .

 

[Ian Chuter]

Bad news Gary. Happened to me once. Some scum bag cloned my card and bought foreign currency and had the nerve to have it delivered by postie to my house. Daughter turned up to see some random bloke on our driveway trying to convince the poor postie that he lived here and basically he grabbed it and did a runner. She did manage to twat him as he barged past her though (broke a finger nail which was her main concern). Bank reimbursed me in the end but does leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Hope yours gets sorted

 

[TonyP]

Bugger, sorry to hear that Gary, hopefully get sorted soon

 

[Gary820]

Yeah they've picked it up fairly quickly and to be fair don't seem to be messing around.
They reckon we'll get it all back no problem, just need to go through it all and declare what isn't ours.
They've managed to spend a few quid online, so may have ordered to the same address etc but that's someone else's job to deal with.

 

[Gary820]

Bad news Gary. Happened to me once. Some scum bag cloned my card and bought foreign currency and had the nerve to have it delivered by postie to my house. Daughter turned up to see some random bloke on our driveway trying to convince the poor postie that he lived here and basically he grabbed it and did a runner. She did manage to twat him as he barged past her though (broke a finger nail which was her main concern). Bank reimbursed me in the end but does leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Hope yours gets sorted

Might get a new sofa delivered to us yet!!

It's more strange the ones that flagged it up. They said the household items don't tend to flag up as it was a weekend (I guess that's when most people buy stuff like that) but the others are somewhere we never spend money with and I guess don't match lifestyle.

 

[Michael Montgomery]

Sorry to hear your the bearer of bad news Gary. Thankfully it's just a process & no ones been harmed physically.

 

[clivehorridge]

Bloody hell, nothing is sacred these days.

As has been said, I don't think you'll have any loss at the end of the day, only the hassle of identifying the scope of the theft.

These barstewards should be locked up for this, it's the inconvenience and distress that counts as much as the money does.

Good luck sorting this matey.

 

[Rosy]

Sorry it happened to you mate, but, as some of the chaps have already pointed out, the activity was detected quickly and once you have clarified what isn't yours, the bank should refund you the full amount. I had a similar experience a few years ago after travelling back home; a few days after I returned I got a call from the bank to say they'd blocked my card because someone tried to buy a car using my details in Indonesia!

After that I decided mitigate my exposure should it happen again by reducing the single day and monthly limits to the absolute minimum. I also instructed the bank to block any foreign transaction unless I specifically call to let them know I will be leaving the country. On a slightly more paranoid note, I also keep my contactless card in a shielded case, mostly because I work with some clever cloggs and I'd rather they didn't buy pints on me without being there!

hope the make you whole quickly mate, nothing worse than being in limbo!

 

[Gary820]

It's just an inconvenience at the end of the day but a bloody big one. Having the accounts frozen makes you feel like done something wrong! They called today to say someone is still trying to use the details!!

We'll get it all back just a pain.

Bank were saying everyone's accounts are basically monitored, if transactions out of the ordinary happen so many times in a certain time frame it flags up.
It's nice to know the system works at least!

 

[StarCruiser]

Sorry to hear this Gary. Glad the card company is sorting it.

We have M&S credit cards and their security is pretty hot. They've actually blocked a card purchase that was suspicious before anything was spent and occasionally decline the card for some of our genuine purchases. A quick phone call sorts it immediately. Inconvenient? Yep, but I'm so pleased they do it as so far it has saved us anything like you describe. Oh, and you get vouchers too that you can spend in store including on food!

No, I don't work for M&S.

Hope it's soon sorted.

 

[clivehorridge]

I was forever getting purchases and ATM withdrawals blocked and emails asking me to approve payments, simply because I was purchasing and withdrawing money from various different countries, on my travels.

I'd already informed the bank in writing a list of likely countries that I would visit in the next 12 months, but still they queried many of them.

As Rich suggested, inconvenient, yes, but we can't complain about inconvenience as a consequence of diligence.

Had the card been cloned, then it could have been theft on quite a grand scale.

It seems that lately, the banks have been forced to take responsibility for the relaxations in the process of card purchases.

In the old days, It was compulsory to sign and PIN number every purchase, these days you can purchase over the phone, or on-line and the banks have to assume liability for these changes.

All good stuff!

 

[Rosy]

G
Strangely out of all the transactions the ones that flagged up were cinema tickets and greggs on line ordering!
Could've done without that hassle that's for sure!!

Interesting that they stopped the card for transactions that I wouldn't expect to be out of the ordinary, makes you wonder what factors beyond time and location they use to determine a suspicious transaction... in your case accurately!

I might pop into the local vegan whole foods store at lunch and see if that gets blocked... and if it doesn't.. call to complain that after 15 years of loyal custom they don't really know me at all!

 

[Gary820]

They declined some payments too, stuff like pizza Hut on line and a few things like that. From what they said on the phone the system is always looking for transactions out of the ordinary, multiple ones that don't match the normal pattern for that account. We don't really do fast food (Apart from Costa coffee) or buy cinema tickets etc never mind all in a few days. Obviously sets an alarm off.

For the thousands of accounts and transactions that must be done daily it's great to know it's there and it works.

Now if they'd have bought car parts, kids stuff, clothes etc we'd prob know when all the money was gone!! It's why the household items didn't set anything off, it's expected at some point.

Very clever system imo and I'm quite thankful of it.