David Lock

I was looking through one of my bank statements and found 6 entries that have nothing to do with me. So either someone has used/cloned my debit card number or the bank have screwed up. Not nice as over a grand involved All happened over 3 days in June btw. (yes I KNOW it's a bit late in the day)

Obviously I have mailed the bank seeking their comments but I wondered if anyone here had some thoughts re the entry descriptions which I have listed? For example Item 1 is a payment for "Congestion Charge" so I guess this is the London Charge and somewhere there will be a record of someone paying this which will have a name and address (you don't pay if you're driving a nicked car). Some of the others seems to be parking/driving related.

Anyone had similar and what are the chances of my getting a refund from the bank?

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1) Payment to Congestion Charge, Card Purchase, £155.00

Does anyone recognise this amount - annual fee?

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2) Payment to LB Camden, Card Purchase, £155.00

As above?

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3) Payment to Abbey Dmo, Card Purchase, £300.00

4) Payment to Abbey Dmo, Card Purchase, £300.00

5) Payment to Tfi Red Route Pcn, Card Purchase, £ 50.00

6) Payment to Lbeal-Parkingservs, Card Purchase, £150.00

Any one recognise these names? Odd that there were 2 card purchases of exactly the same round amount?


Any thoughts welcome. Stupid troll comments will not be appreciated. TIA, David

davegtt

Took you 4 months to notice someone has took over a grand from your account? How much money do you have

Looks very suspicious though. All the debits look to be something to do with cars, parking, congestion charge, red route PCN etc.... Shouldnt be too hard to track it all down. Cant be of any help though, hope you get it sorted.

Suresh

Sorry to read you story. David I think you should :
1. Get an immediate stop put on your debit card and a new one issued
2. Contact the police and report the suspected theft
3. Check that your household insurance covers this sort of theft if the bank doesn't cough up

Suresh

Shark Man

The congestion charge should be a good one to follow up...as they should be able to link it to a vehicle's registration plate that is in the name of someone who knows the fraudster (unless its false plates, or an old/previous registered keeper...but then, what would the point in paying it be? ).

Obviously, only the powers of the police can follow that one up (Data protection, blah blah). So best get some practice by talking to brick walls

lozgti

Hmmm.When we had our card cloned it was nothing 'sophisticated' like using the card to pay things as above....they simply emptied the account of cash via cashpoint

Doesn't sound like a cloning job.

Bank error or errant wife

Freelance Badger

Does seem a bit strange. Assuming it's a 'genuine' car using it to pay charges would be too easy to trace and stop.. and why bother on a stolen car/ with false plates ?

David Lock

Thanks for the sympathetic comments guys. And to put the record straight I am not loaded and cannot afford to wave goodbye to a grand. The point about Data Protection is interesting in that as it was me that "apparently" paid the Congestion Charge how can they refuse to give me the details?

Does anyone work in a bank and know what the chances of a data entry error are? It seems odd that all of this **** happened in just 2 days and I wonder if a batch of card processing stuff all came in together and was entered against my account in error - I just don't know how the system works. And I don't really trust my bank to tell me either!!

Still anxious to identify some of the descriptions e.g. Tfi Red Route Pen and Lbeal-Parkingservs ???

Oh and btw the missus is in the clear (for the moment ) david

Brendan Hughes

TFL Red Route Penalty - Transport for London parking on a Red Route? (Like yellow lines but worse)

Leslie

Very upsetting to find that has happened, I hope the bank can trace it and refund you.

Les

Freak

thats a red route penalty charge notice. ie, a parking ticket for reds

Congestion charge amount (155) is the amount it rises to for late payment after a while IIRC

JamieMacdonald

Not read the full thread, but the original post is scarily similar to what happened to my work mate. He had to entries for what looked like parking fines, and the spooky thing is one of them was Payment to LB (London Borough?) Camden! The other one was LB Lambeth IIRC. There were two corresponding debits from what turned out to be a collections agency.

Bottom line - phone your bank straight away to report fraudulent activity on your account. They stopped my mates card and sent a replacement, and he had the money back within a few days I think. No need to report to the police - the bank took care of all that. He was with LTSB. He comes on here actually so might even see this thread.

Maybe there is a gang who've got hold of lots of peoples card details and are selling them for people to use to pay for parking tickets?

Rage!

There was a Dispatches or similar programme a while back about bent traffic wardens... one of them was on the take for 'making parking charges disappear'.... basically you'd bung him a tenner and he'd wipe the parking charge, except they discovered he wasn't even doing that, he was using stolen credit cards to pay off the charge!

I bet this is a similar scam. They'll trace the parking charges back to people who paid someone else to get rid of their congestion/parking charges.

David Lock

All most interesting and informative so many thanks. In fact I have reported to police Jamie - in fact before I read your comments. Very nice about it but I reported to Sussex where I live who now send a report to Surrey where first fraudulent transaction took place and then on to the Met' because of the Congestion Charge stuff!! Quite frankly they are going to have better things to do than spend time on a dodgy payment for a parking fine or three!!

Freak - yes you are correct about the £155 charge amount and the Red Route penalty.

Still a bit of a mystery of how they got my card details and security number which would be required. I don't live in London or get pissed in restaurants and leave the card behind the bar or whatever. But I have used it for on line purchases, for example, so it just needs someone to scribble the details down I guess. david

Kev_turbo

Number 6 is payment of parking fines in London borough of Ealing

JamieMacdonald

Just checking that you've phoned your bank's fraud phoneline to report it and had your card stopped??

They should also be able to refund you the money fairly quickly.

David Lock

Yes Jamie - first thing I did this morning. And card cancelled immediately.

Thanks Kev - didn't think of that

Just need some ideas for Abbey Dmo??? Note bank could have easily mispelt the Dmo bit though. david

Rage!

DMO - Debt Management Office?

NotoriousREV

That's Abbey (as in the bank) Debt Management Office

pwhittle

last year I discovered someone had been buying their food on my card. They also had it delivered, which is really annoying. It also gives a pretty good clue to go on. I reported it to the Hfx, who sorted it out pretty well, and reprted it to their fraud department. (mind you, another transaction wne tout after I'd reported it, but at elast I got my money back)
TBH I doubt they bother investigation relatively small amounts. They may if there's a pattern.

jaydut

If you bank and use your credit/debit cards on line id scan your pc for key loggers etc.

David Lock

An interesting update for anyone interested in my sad story........

I found another couple of dodgy transactions for payments made to Kingston College (not mentioned in my original post). So I spoke to the Security Manager at Kingston College and explained the situation. He has just e-mailed me back having identified the payments made by a student who gave a cardholders address in Wembley. The name given was D Lock but instead of an HA (Harrow) postcode the address had my own Sussex code given.

Now I don't use the card in question very much but I had used an Internet Company based in Rickmansworth to buy a second hand colour printer. It was a telephone order so obviously I gave them all the card details and this was a few days before the fraud started. I have also learnt that they have a sister company who processed the payment - based in Wembley! So I am probably being too clever for my own good but it seems an odd coincidence.

On a lighter note when I phoned Surrey Police who had been sent the report from Sussex because of the Kingston connection I was told that they don't deal with Kingston and I should contact the Met' instead although Sussex Police didn't seem to know this.......... dl

bob r

iTrader: (46)

after you have reported it to your bank its for the bank to report it to the police, not you.

paul-s

columbo lives on

wrxtankie

I know a few some would say, unsavoury people in Rickmansworth. If you need someone to ask some questions at the buisness address

David Lock

It was the bank that suggested I reported it to old bill But why shouldn't I - it was my money that has being nicked?

Tankie, thanks for the offer I probably went to school with many of them as I lived there for 26 years!! Bottom of Batchworth Hill if you know the place (at the old water company).

Paul - I've got the dirty raincoat............

little-ginge

You'd think I would have learnt my lesson, wouldn't you...

had a DD set up on my credit card to Penthouse Magazine - turns out it was some ****** behind the counter in a local petrol station using peoples card details ( this was in the days pre chip & pin).

Got the money back - eventually after having to sign god knows how many forms confirming that neither myself or any of my family members had signed on to the Penthouse website.

I still don't check my statements properly - but reading this thread has made me make it a bit more of a priority!!

Hope you get it sorted, David

r32

Its all too easy, my wife had her card cloned but thankfully we picked it up quickly as the Bank phoned about an odd transaction.

Its not HSBC is it as there cards have your account number as part of the card number...... the only Bank that does.

2000TLondon

I had a similar thing happen to me a few years back, someone changed my address with the bank, ordered a new card, and went to work..... They took about a grand in 10 days, mainly buying cigarettes, petrol, and getting 40 quid cashback at apparently every garage they drove past!

I got all the money back, eventually, and got a cheque from le'banque for my troubles..... It took a while, as they were investigating, but they never implied they wouldn't pay it back. As far as I am aware, if you didn't spend it, you should be getting it all back.......

2000TLondon

I had to report it to the police myself, the bank wouldn't report it, BTW....

David Lock

Just had a call from the Met' based in Kingston who will be sending me forms to complete, marry them up with forms that the bank are sending and post them back to my bank. Now calling me Mr Lock rather than David so it must be getting serious

I told the Met guy that I thought I had the name of the student that had been using my card but he wasn't interested at this stage (post it through after you have completed the forms). Could I e-mail him an update? - "no we have so many firewalls that we don't get half the e-mails that are sent to us". OK can I have your phone number in case I have a query when I get your forms? "No - we don't give out our phone number". One just gets the feeling that they don't make life easy for themselves. I was about to make a joke about baseball bats but thought better of it as the guy didn't seem to have a sense of humour dl