Has anyone had their card cloned?

[gazman]

Hi all,
I'm after some advice please: The other week my sister checked her online bank account & realised there was £200 missing.
She phoned up the bank & found some unauthorised transactions had been made, 2 card swipe transactions in Hammersmith one morning & 3 ATM withdrawels in Ghana (as in Africa) in the afternoon, & she has never been to Ghana.
She has left it in the hands of the banks security/fraud department, thinking it was all going to be sorted but today she got this letter:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m241/gazman_07/hghfghfff2.jpg?t=1193087431 (http://javascript<b></b>:void(0);)

Is there anything she can do? The card has obviously been cloned as there was a physical copy on another continent??? :confused:

Thanks in advance for any help of advice.

Gaz

[squirrel_hunter]

First thing is to cancel the card.

Next write back saying that you are unsatisfied with their response and request that it is looked at again. I take it that you have the times of the transactions, if so find out the travel time from Hammersmith to Ghana chances are it won't be possible to do without some serious help from a particular Dr.

This looks like a standard letter that is sent by the bank every time there is a fraud 'investigation' they will look up that the PIN was used and thats it. But if you kick up enough fuss it should normally get resolved correctly.

I do have to take issue with their claim that the Chip cannot be cloned. Unfortunately it can. Chances are though it has been skimmed at an ATM, hence the swipes and ATM usage of the fraud.

[454697819]

Dont forget to mention to them that they are now making her out to be a liar... and that they are now accusing her of comitting fraud by claiming the amounts werent her spending...

that ought to make then re think what they are saying,

Whilst the pin might have been used they are far from fool proof, send copies of pass port proving she hasnt been to Ghana either...

be as factual as you can but also be hard in the letter... banks dont care about customers these days ... imho...

[Viney]

Yes. Never had an issue. Canceld card, got the money refunded. Easy peasy.

Get it sorted then move banks.

Cant see letter as im at work.

[kwak zzr]

that reply from the bank is really bad:( all the money they make and when you need their help they dont want to know? i'd go in there today and close all accounts with them, cant you get intouch with the banking ombudsman?

[Tris]

Yes -twisting git in the local petrol station was scanning them under the counter. They got cards ffrom two differnt accounts

Ours were all done in Thailand where you don't need a pin no. Is Ghana the same?

However, both banks paid up in full and had already suspended the account beore we even knew there was a problem.

Can your sister prove wher she was at the time the transactions were being made? Might help beat the bank into submission.

Good Luck

[poisonidea]

This happened to me with both my current account and credit card at the same time, both had withdrawls from canada and london with about 5 minutes of each other so obviously a clone. no problems in getting the money back from either (woolwich and virgin credit card). Just had to fill out a dispute form. What you gotta remember is you've given them YOUR money to look after and they've lost it, not you...

[northwind]

From the banking code, to which your bank subscribes:

Liability for losses
12.11 If you act fraudulently, you will be responsible for all
losses on your account. If you act without reasonable
care, and this causes losses, you may be responsible
for them. (This may apply if you do not follow section
12.5 or you do not keep to your account’s terms and
conditions.)
12.12 Unless we can show that you have acted fraudulently
or without reasonable care, your liability for the misuse
of your card will be limited as follows.
• If someone else uses your card, before you tell us it
has been lost or stolen or that someone else knows
your PIN, the most you will have to pay is £50.
• If someone else uses your card details without your
permission, and your card has not been lost or
stolen, you will not have to pay anything.
• If someone else uses your card details without your
permission for a transaction where the cardholder
does not need to be present, you will not have to
pay anything.

The only way they can get round this is if they can show you to have acted either fraudulently or without reasonable care.

They can't dispute that a pin can be obtained despite you taking reasonable care- phreaking or camera devices can both do that without you being aware of it, even if you take reasonable care (concealed devices on or near an ATM frinstance. Here you can totally contradict them, they've stated without qualification that it's your responsibility to protect the pin- just not the case. That's good news for you, their letter simply contradicts the banking code.

So, they have to accuse you of either giving up the pin- which they can't prove- or committing fraud- which you haven't done.

In short, get it up ye Santander. But, it's a while since I worked in fraud prevention, it's possible there's stuff like Ombudsman cases that I'm not aware of, so don't take me as the letter of the law. If it was me, I'd go back to them with a formal complaint and raise the banking code issue, test the water- see if they're willing to make a fight of it or if this is just the usual opportunistic bank c***.

[instigator]

I recently had a problem with a BP station where I was charged £48.50 for a single transaction, 21 minutes after my original transaction went through and I left the petrol station. After MUCH (2 months) faffing around, I eventually got BP to look into it and they eventually found out that after I had left, someone filled up with fuel and drove off without paying. So in all of the till persons infinite wisdom, they decided to manually charge it to my card because they apparently "panicked".

What the hell is the point of chip and pin if they allow this to happen????

Biggest crock of **** to date.

Sorry to hear of your problems gazman. I asked my bank about the problem and they told me they couldnt help me full stop due to the fact it was a maestro card and not a visa. Went to another branch and they were actualy concerned, told me to get a criminal reference number and then give that to the bank and they WOULD get my money back. Perhaps worth visiting a different branch.

[gazman]

Thanks for all the replies so far guys & girls,

It’s nice to read these encouraging posts. My sis was in tears, first of loosing £200 quid & then made to feel like a lying fraudster. She’s only a student & studying to be an accountant, so £200 is a lot of money to her & she’s worried it could have implications on her chosen career.

Now there’s an update: she popped in to the local branch & while she was there she phoned up the office to get it sorted, they’ve now admitted that the card use in Ghana WAS NOT a chip & pin type even though the letter clearly states it was & implies that my sis was committing fraud? They said they are now going to reinvestigate & she should hear from them in a week’s time, but my sis is still £200 down at the moment & has to deal with all the hassle & worry for even longer. I’ve told her to make a complaint about the lady who has wrote/signed her name against the slanderous letter that’s full of lies.

Banks are ****ing me off at the moment they have to be some of the most greedy money grabbing companies out there, in the last 2 months I’ve had three £25 banks charges automatically taken out of my account, when I rang up each time they admitted that an error had been made but I still had to wait til the end of the month before any dosh would be refunded.

They are quick to grab peoples money at the slightest opportunity but it’s completely the other way round when the make a **** up with your money. They’re quite happy to slap a bank charge on us but I wonder what they would say if anyone turned around & said they was gonna charge the bank for a **** up they’ve made?

Thanks again.

Gaz

[phil24_7]

Thanks for all the replies so far guys & girls,

It’s nice to read these encouraging posts. My sis was in tears, first of loosing £200 quid & then made to feel like a lying fraudster. She’s only a student & studying to be an accountant, so £200 is a lot of money to her & she’s worried it could have implications on her chosen career.

Now there’s an update: she popped in to the local branch & while she was there she phoned up the office to get it sorted, they’ve now admitted that the card use in Ghana WAS NOT a chip & pin type even though the letter clearly states it was & implies that my sis was committing fraud? They said they are now going to reinvestigate & she should hear from them in a week’s time, but my sis is still £200 down at the moment & has to deal with all the hassle & worry for even longer. I’ve told her to make a complaint about the lady who has wrote/signed her name against the slanderous letter that’s full of lies.

Banks are ****ing me off at the moment they have to be some of the most greedy money grabbing companies out there, in the last 2 months I’ve had three £25 banks charges automatically taken out of my account, when I rang up each time they admitted that an error had been made but I still had to wait til the end of the month before any dosh would be refunded.

They are quick to grab peoples money at the slightest opportunity but it’s completely the other way round when the make a **** up with your money. They’re quite happy to slap a bank charge on us but I wonder what they would say if anyone turned around & said they was gonna charge the bank for a **** up they’ve made?

Thanks again.

Gaz

You with NatWest??

They took a cancelled standing order out of my account. Local branch said nothing they can do, phone customer services who took 4 days to get it back to me. Then the next month some lovely little slag at the Plymouth City Centre branch decided to take the manually take the money out of my account and put it in their holding account. This time Cust services couldn't do jack and it took me much too-ing and fro-ing and over a month, I got an apology from customer services and a bottle of wine, however all I really wanted was an apology from the stupid b1tch who caused me all the grief.

Got my revenge in the end, I've barred her from my pub (the biggest wetherspoons in Plymouth and one of the most popular meeting places before going onto clubs) and I know ALOT of her friends meet here regularly, that's gotta f*ck her off!

[tigersaw]

On a bit of a tangent but..
I'm assuming from reading the links mentioned here that it is not possible to clone the chip, but as we all know it is possible to clone the magnetic strip - I'm assuming this is how card cloning, with discovery of your PIN, is still going on.
Now every transaction I make is with a chip and pin machine, not the magnetic strip. The only one I dont know about, and the most important, is the ATM's.
Does anyone know if the ATM's read the chip? If so, I will happily erase the mag strips from my cards.

[Pedro68]

On a bit of a tangent but..
I'm assuming from reading the links mentioned here that it is not possible to clone the chip, but as we all know it is possible to clone the magnetic strip - I'm assuming this is how card cloning, with discovery of your PIN, is still going on.
Now every transaction I make is with a chip and pin machine, not the magnetic strip. The only one I dont know about, and the most important, is the ATM's.
Does anyone know if the ATM's read the chip? If so, I will happily erase the mag strips from my cards.
I would have thought that this would have contravened the banks T&C that they place on the use of their cards ... ergo, if you erase the magnetic strip, the card-reader COULD detect that the card has been tampered with and could cancel it, or withhold it ... do you really want the hassle?

IMO ;-)

Pete

[SteveH]

Abbey are the biggest load of pooo ever, just waiting to get my money back then I'am off (takes upto 2/4 weeks to get your money back after a fraud)
All payments they made were over the phone and internet. And don't forget they don't need you PIN for that just the code on the back so if some tit at the place you pay wants too he can use your card!!!!


P.s they did this on both my accounts so I had to use my credit cards otherwise I would have not had any money

[Viney]

Apprantly, i was in Las Vegas and Tesco, Cheapside, EC4 at the same time when i had my card cloned!

There are some stories about using your debit/credit cards in Shell and now BP garages, and them being cloned in there. Apprently its the tamil tigers, and them forcing the employees to clone the cards, if they dont, thier family are hurt or killed. Its quite scary.

[squirrel_hunter]

I'm assuming from reading the links mentioned here that it is not possible to clone the chip, but as we all know it is possible to clone the magnetic strip - I'm assuming this is how card cloning, with discovery of your PIN, is still going on.


I need to make it very clear here. It is possible to clone the chip.

At the end of the day there is a device that reads the card and validates the input. While it is encrypted there is no encryption that is perfect and given enough time or someone with the key encryption will be broken. It is then a simple task of loading the data onto a new chip card and there you have it a cloned card.

However its easier to clone the mag stripe. But I wouldn't worry to much about cloning cards the real problem is all the companies that are keeping your and your card details on unsecured unencrypted databases...

[phil24_7]

On a bit of a tangent but..
I'm assuming from reading the links mentioned here that it is not possible to clone the chip, but as we all know it is possible to clone the magnetic strip - I'm assuming this is how card cloning, with discovery of your PIN, is still going on.
Now every transaction I make is with a chip and pin machine, not the magnetic strip. The only one I dont know about, and the most important, is the ATM's.
Does anyone know if the ATM's read the chip? If so, I will happily erase the mag strips from my cards.

Some ATM's still read the magnetic strip. They're all meant to be set up to read the chip but not all of the cash machines we're replaced/upgraded and there is still a significant number of machines that read the strip!

I need to make it very clear here. It is possible to clone the chip.
It is possible to copy or clone anything, if the technology exists to make something then it exists to for someone to copy it!

At the end of the day there is a device that reads the card and validates the input. While it is encrypted there is no encryption that is perfect and given enough time or someone with the key encryption will be broken. It is then a simple task of loading the data onto a new chip card and there you have it a cloned card.

It's only a matter of time before they start producing perfect clones of cards like they used to!

However its easier to clone the mag stripe. (easier, cheaper and quicker, hence much more attractive to fraudsters at the moment) But I wouldn't worry to much about cloning cards the real problem is all the companies that are keeping your and your card details on unsecured unencrypted databases...

That last statement is the scariest piece of information on the thread, anyone with a bit of computer knowhow and a job in the right place could have a firld day with all the details stored!!

[Jools'SV Now]

Yep, some joker thought he'd set up an internet betting account with mine !
He started betting £50 a time, then got more adventurous

My bank phoned me to tell me something was dodgy.
refund straight away. no probs.

Wonder where the winnings went?:confused:

[gazman]

Well a my sis was actually in Hammersmith few weeks before these unauthorised transactions.
The only time she used her card was to check her balance at an ATM in the tube/train station. I'm wondering if its more than a coincedence that's where card swipe transactions were made?? Maybe one of those little devices they put into the card slot on an ATM that reads peoples card details? Is it worth her phoning the Met police & tell them which ATM it was so they can keep an eye on it?

[northwind]

At the end of the day there is a device that reads the card and validates the input. While it is encrypted there is no encryption that is perfect and given enough time or someone with the key encryption will be broken. It is then a simple task of loading the data onto a new chip card and there you have it a cloned card.

However its easier to clone the mag stripe. But I wouldn't worry to much about cloning cards the real problem is all the companies that are keeping your and your card details on unsecured unencrypted databases...

:thumbsup: Even APACS admit it's not foolproof, in fact, they say the pin number is stronger- so considering how easy it is to aquire a pin, that's not exactly encouraging. Some of the information gatherers essentially image the chip, so it's not even neccesary to break the encryption if you have the pin- you just have to produce an exact copy. Easier to crib it by other means than to break the chip.

But aye, it's still uncommon, because it's so much hassle to do- easier to do a card trap, or a not-present transaction, or magnetic strip clone.

[timwilky]

I have to agree that Abbey is **** poor at customer relations, counter staff I have talked to apologise whenever there is a problem with my wifes account. All they can do is refer you to the phone to customer services with an anonymous individual eventually at the end of the line. They are right, you are wrong. end of.

[RingDing]

I have to admit I've not read all the posts here but this is my experience. I've twice had my Natwest credit card cloned. Both times Natwest caught it and blocked the transaction before contacting me to tell me what had happened. Both times they were fantastically helpful and got me a replacement card ASAP.
The first time someone tried to use my card to take cash out a machine in Bangkok, whilst I was in Bristol! This obviously required a PIN but I was told this could be taken anywhere through double skiimming my card and watching me enter my PIN. This would make what Abbey told your sister a pile of...excrement.
The second time was a fraudulent internet transaction, which I was told was a lucky guess with a card number.

Like I said both times they were great, and I don't really have a good word to say about them normally.

IMO, Abbey are being very unfair in their judgement. Could she not contact the banking ombudsman to get their opinion? They helped me when Natwest screwed up on another issue.

HTH

[Tris]

... after I had left, someone filled up with fuel and drove off without paying....

Yeh right

What do you recon the odds are that "someone" was actually his brother?? :smt045:smt045

[thor]

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/saving-and-banking/article.html?in_article_id=409616&in_page_id=7

As far as I understand it, the chip holds the pin. So the machine just checks your input against what is on the chip. If you can crack the chip, you can clone it and get the pin. It's then easy to spend on it because no one will know that you aren't the correct owner.

The only reason they introduced this was because there was a problem with dodgy shop assistants authorising obviously fake signatures on cards stolen by their criminal friends.