How can this possibly happen?
 

I went to pay for something with my card this morning and the guy behind the counter told me that it was declined. I thought it was really strange as i have money in my account, so i rang my bank and asked them to give me a breakdown of all transactions including any pending ones. Turns out that some motherfucker withdrew a big chunk of my money out IN GERMANY(!!!!!!!), yesterday afternoon. I don't recall flying out to Hamburg to do just that.

It seems there's quite a serious problem with cards being cloned. I had only read about it happening in petrol stations, but if it's happening there, I guess it can easily happen elsewhere too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6578595.stm

There's another scam involving dodgy cashpoint machines too.

It's happened to me twice before and i always got my money back because it was obvious that those transactions didn't belong to me, so i'm not entirely shocked. When the girl i spoke to on the phone told me that the money was withdrawn in euros from a cash machine in Germany and came out in sterling from my account, i thought it was the oddest thing that's happened to me. It's also a hassle because it means i'll have to go and fill in a form in the bank and go to report it to the police after, close down the account and open another one etc.

its happened to me as well. it was quite scary and not a very nice feeling at all knowing that someone is taking all your money. in leeds people used to come around and go through your bins to see of they could find any old bank statements or receipts with info on them so they could use it themselves.

when i told the bank they didnt believe me and made me feel like i was a criminal until they saw transactions happening when i was stood infront of them so it obviously couldnt have been me.

Somebody was taking about £30 out of my account every month. And because it was such small amounts, and never for exactly the same amount, I didn't notice for a while.

You get the money back, but it's such a pain as porky said, going to the police and filling in forms at the bank.

One of the most annoying things is exactly the feeling of someone having access to your account.I didn't have problems proving that it wasn't me spending the money because i was at work when the transactions were put through, and also i have never been to a Peckham supermarket or bought shoes in Bond Street.

i got the money back but it took a while and i had to take out a lot of cash to survive and then destroy my card and wait until they sent me another. its just a worrying feeling knowing that you have a doppleganger out there.

it has never happened again thank god.

The whole closing down the account and opening another one, going to collect a new card from your local branch and having to withdraw all the money out in order to survive is also something that is a right pain in the arse.

bah thats fucked
do you use your card online? thats really terrible, can you do anything about the missing money?

With mine, the bank couldn't tell me where the money was going, and so my only option was opening a new account.

To be fair to the bank, they did that for me straight away, and transferred all my direct debits etc. without any fuss.

EDIT: and I got my money back.

When i closed my account the first time, the system (it's always the system, innit?) opened four different accounts and the person dealing with it was having troubles tracing the account that my wages were going into. The inconvenience is having to go to the nearest branch when you are at work, so your lunch break is spent filling in forms and dealing with stuff like that.

Apparently the scumbags cloned my card and, through a sophisticated advice that they mounted on a cash machine that i must have used, they were able to poach my pin number too. The good thing is that the whole thing might be sorted out by tomorrow and i'll get my dough back.

What a horrible experience you've had. There's been a spate of ATM cloning around where I work, and so I will either only use cash machines that are either inside a bank, or make damn sure that nothing is in the card slot before I stick my card in. You can't be too safe/paranoid when it comes to this.

i didnt have to do all that thankgod. my account was closed for a while and they did some investigations but i dont think they ever found out who it was. the transactions where for some media company for about £280 and then some online shopping which they managed to block. sorry to hear about it all man.

May I just point out:

Haha.

the worst that I've had happen was when my wife and I were moving out of our first apartment. the landlord was showing the place while we were gone and somebody must have stolen some of my old starter checks (I should have destroyed them).

because they were carbon copies of checks that I'd written, it had my driver's license number written on them. they were able to use this to write checks for cash at a walmart an hour away from me.

I was also able to get my money back, but like you said it's a real pain in the ass.

crime pays.

the same exact thing i do, not that i have much money at anytime in my account, but when i need cash, more then 90% of the time i get from a bank atm (mostly my own to not be charged the $2 service fee on non my-back atms), and i am extra particular with what sites i purchase from, like on GEMM, say a guy from england is selling Hanatarashi lp for say 40 quid, and the guy has no feedback and isn't certified, then i ain't gonna take the chance, they have to prove they are reliable and not scamming the crap out of people, you really can't be too safe indeed

and also, those machines, some people not only tamper with an existing one, some people are so conniving that they would buy their own machine, set it out in a store to collect any credit card numbers they come across, it's rare but it has happened

Crime spends.

True, i read of something similar a while ago. It just means that from now on i'll make it the rule to use atm machines inside the branch of a bank, rather than one on the street. At least whenever i can, because it's not always possible.

wait until it happens to you sunny boy. no doubt we will see a million posts from you moaning on about it.