Credit Card Fraud
 

Got a call yesterday from Barclays Credit Card fraud dept, asking if i`d spent a large sum of money in the last few days.

They wanted to know all my details so i thought ok here we go as i`ve read about this sort of scam on here. They said someone they gave me his name and where he lived, tried to buy a 9 grand motorbike with my card, which was rejected so they paid a £2,666 deposit and the remainder would be paid on delivery a said bike.

Thoughts went through my head as earlier that morning i tried to pay my mobile phone bill with my card but they rejected it from me , now these people said they`d put a block on my card, so thinking of a safe way to prove these people were genuine i gave them the last 6 digits, and said could they bring my details up with that, thankfully they could confirm my most recent payments from this card including this 2,666 which the bike shop had taken out of my account. It has been put back into my account now by them as they suspected fraud because the scammer said can they can take cash out of a second card, not mine btw.

I`m still shocked that this has happened to me as i`m very vigalent with my card and any reciepts.
All my local branch said about this thing was that someone may have entered a card no. in, got one digit wrong and came up with my no. andthey rectified it as soon as they realized.

Happend to me too, 2 grands worth of car Hi-Fi turned up on my doorstep, in turns out the little bastids down at my local Shell garage had a scam going but the company invovold would only deliver to the card holders address, the Police were bought in but I never found out what happened, but the scotes gave 2 phone numbers a local one, and a mobile one, I rang the mobile and someone answerd it and I told him what I'd do to him if I ever got my hands on him.
Cheers
Colin

DieselDoo,

I see this quite a lot (I work in fraud prevention) and you can never be too vigilant with your cards and receipts. I doubt very much that this person gave their card number and got one digit wrong, as the card number corresponds to quite a complex algorithm and one card will never have only one digit different to another. However, once you know the algorithm a particular card issuer uses you can create your own card numbers!

This kind of fraud tends to follow credit card skimming or bin raiding for receipts. Skimming happens when you hand your card to somebody for payment and they swipe it through two machines, one which reads the card details (so they can make a copy of it) and one which places the transaction (the genuine machine). As a rule, be weary if a shop you're unfamiliar with takes your card into a back room to swipe it. We've had cases like this from market stalls and dodgy restaurants!

Some shop receipts are a gift to fraudsters, the really bad receipts will show your credit card number, expiry date and signature on the carbon copy - everything they need to attempt to rip you off. Even worse is some shops have a little metal bin at the end of the till to throw your unwanted receipt into, and fraudsters go around collecting the receipts from these bins.

Banks/finance houses usually will phone you if their system sees irregular spending patterns on your account (bank systems do this automatically, scanning for irregular patterns using neural networks/AI).

There are lots of ways the guilty party could have got hold of your card number or generated it, but now they've been caught doing it they would have to be incredibly stupid to try it again with the same card. Keep an eye on your account for purchases that shouldn't be there. The bank will probably not tell you how or what has happened, but they are liable for it and will make damned sure it doesn't happen again to you!

Some nice person :( :( emptied my account whilst i was away on holiday in early June.
Somehow they obtained my delta card details and decided to go on an on-line spending spree.
Bank were very good and refunded said cash and tipped it over to the fraud
dept.
Had to get new details etc. took over a week
Strange thing is if they do find the perpetrator they cannot tell me who it is due to the data protection act.

Kudos to Barclays for acting pro-actively :)

It's a pain in the ass, and as Minor_threat says it's most likely from someone getting a receipt, or just randomly generating a valid card number with software - the checksum is simple, which is why more on-line places are asking for CVV (the three numbers on the back of the card on your signature strip)

Debit cards are a *lot* worse for this to happen to, as it's a lot more difficult to get cash refunded because the consumer credit act is not involved :(

Still, at least it's all ended up well for everyone who's posted here so far!
Nick.

Egg are really good with this
Paid for something large with paypal ( a pair of turntables)- 50% came from paypal account and i addded the rest with my card.
Got a phone call from egg within hours asking if it was genuine as they are constantly monitoring and looking for potential fraud transactions.
Barclays customer service is terrible- but their fraud dept is really good too.

As im self employed- i keep reciepts for everything, but it does concern me somewhat what happens to the other copy. Particuarly in petrol stations in places all around the counrty. My spending pattern is all over the country and often online, so i can imagine (touch wood) should anything bad happen it may be hard to get the cash returned, but we shall see.

I had the same thing recently from Capital One - they rang me as there had been £1500 worth of transactions on my card and they picked them up.. I was quite impressed with it!

Bit of hassle but good that they picked it up.

Paul..

Put £22,000 through Lloyds in 1 transaction, nobody questions it. Spend £11.99 on Paypal and they ring me !!!!!

A few years ago I received a new credit card the day before I went on hols to LA/Vegas. The credit card company phoned when I got a 750 quid cash advance (in a casino in Vegas) on my card as the first transaction. Luckily there was someone at the house to take the call and assure them the transaction was OK.

Chip & PIN should get rid of a lot of credit (& debit) card fraud - just make sure you know your PIN number before January 2005!

Unfortunately Chip & PIN will only displace fraud, not get rid of it. Fraud is like a balloon, squeeze one part and another part bulges. Chip & PIN will lower rates of transaction/point of sale credit and debit card fraud, but the fraudsters will not just stop, they'll move on to card-not-present fraud, application fraud and identity theft. Sadly our research is showing this to be true.