Someone stole all my money. Help!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 651465
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Deleted member 651465

Deleted member 651465

Here's the deal..

As I'm saving for my wedding and honeymoon I've been super-strict about my spending habits. I buy food from Morrisons at lunch, fill up my car and buy the food shopping on the weekends.

However, Saturday gone I went to town early to exchange a damaged birthday present. Nothing major you'd think? Wrong.

Firstly, I get to the checkout and my debit card is declined.. Odd, I thought considering my lack of spending (fair enough if I'd been splashing out) and it was only to pay the £8.95 extra, which isn't a high amount. Then, I give my backup debit card to the lady and to which I'm informed that it too was declined. Queue me being a bit embaressed. Anyway, the girl called a supervisor to which they say they have to call the bank, but can't do it at the checkout as there is no phone.

They do not take my card upstairs (like they said they might have to) to authorise it, instead, after about 10 minutes the first transaction suddenly gets accepted :confused: I confirm with the girl and the supervisor that only my first debit card was charged and leave the shop wondering what just happened.

ANYWAY...

Later that day I go to Asda with the mrs and buy the shopping. Thankfully the card wasn't declined so I thought nothing of it. That was, until I tried to buy dinner at work the next day.

1 phone call to Barclays Fraud Dept. and my card-restriction is lifted. I asked if it had anything to do with the purchase on Saturday to which they said "yes, it was flagged by our fraud dept". Odd, as all the transactions the chap called out were all legit. Being the paranoid man I am, I later checked my online banking that night just incase the highstreet store had accidently billed my secondary account by mistake. They hadn't. Thankfully.

Here is where the panic sets in...

I am casually checking my account tonight as I usually do every week or so (paid tonight at midnight) to work out my budgets and I find that I am £300 in the red.

Just so we know, someone has taken nearly £4000 and has gone in to my overdraft (only got a £200 OD) so they've cleaned out a good chunk of my savings for the honeymoon.

I've rung Barclays who've stopped the card and I'm taking the day off work to go down to my main branch to sort this out, but I can't think if there is anything else I will need to do? Should I call the police, or is it best to see what / if the bank can trace the purchases first?

Annoyingly, I didn't print a statement when I had access to my online banking (they've locked me out of that as a temporary measure) so I can only recall two non-conformities. 1 was from some catalogue website, another is for 02 prepay for two amounts, £20 and £10 (I have a contract phone).

Sorry to rant, but the bank is saying this could take 10 working days to resolve, and I'll have to claim all the unauthorised purchases back. I just want to cry, but at the same time I am very very angry. Who would do this? I'm very careful with my card, in fact I never withdraw money from the hole in the wall, and cover the Chip N Pin machines completely when making purchases. I can only really think that the only time my card was out of my hands was for that 10 minutes when it lay face-up on the counter of the highstreet store.

Anyone got advice? How far can the bank / police go to trace these people? :mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
So you pay for your petrol with this card...? Wouldn't surprise me if this is where your details were skimmed.

As for how far the police can go... well they could trace it completely back, but it's more about how far they will decide to go. It's not worth the time and effort due to the number of incidents.

Chances are the details were used to make purchases abroad, as it's much easier than using them in this country. USA is a popular choice, as is eastern Europe, Russia, etc... Basically, countries where Chip & Pin aren't a requirement at cash points, or where Cardholder Not Present (CNP) transactions are accepted without the card's CCV.

Should be easy to identify the fraudulent transactions.
 
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And there were people calling me an idiot for commenting that all purchases are safer through a credit card, and that debit cards are simply dangerous and pointless.

Best of luck sorting it all out, and in future think about perhaps using credit to pay for things. There will then be zero impact to yourself if something like this happens. :)
 
Sounds like your card has been cloned.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, it's actually fairly common nowadays. Criminals nowadays tend to clone cards in the dozens and then sell the numbers online in large batches.

The bank will definitely refund the money. They could charge you £50 or so per card for liability if they felt you had been negligent, but it doesn't sound as if you have so I doubt they will.
 
I would say it was the shop and the 'declined' story they gave you, was it a local or national retailer?

You should get your money back so I wouldn't be worried about that, it will take a bit of time though.
 
Jez said:
all purchases are safer through a credit card, and that debit cards are simply dangerous and pointless.
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This man speaks the truth!

With a credit card it's their money that's gone, they'll make sure they sort it out ASAP!
 
Yep, it's very easy to grab details. Someone i know managed to get details for several cards while working at tesco, and set-up paypal accounts with all of them, etc...

(he's now been caught and charged btw)
 
If it's fraud, you'll getyour money back, I really wouldn't worry about it. Catalogue is a classic - buy high-value items and flog them on. See it fairly often at work, once refunded £11k after a fraud!
 
zain said:
I would say it was the shop and the 'declined' story they gave you, was it a local or national retailer?

You should get your money back so I wouldn't be worried about that, it will take a bit of time though.
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Not sure If I can say because of the competitor rule.

It was the large "dog" music shop. Mods, feel free to edit.

I am only thinking this because the card was lying on the counter and some chav with a cameraphone could easily have snapped the number as the tills are very close together.

I haven't fuelled my car in a week, so i'm trying to pin it down to something I've done lately which is why I'm drawing up blank. I've rarely used it. (I suppose they could have cloned it a while back, and not used it)
 
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Doesn't matter if it's a credit card or a debit card that has been skimmed... unless your issuing bank believes you were negligent (and you can't prove otherwise) then you will get the funds back, irrespective of the type of card.

Credit cards offer protection over debit cards in the case where a contract has been breached, i.e. you didn't get what you paid for, because in that case your contract is between you and the issuing bank whereas for payments made with a debit card the contract is between you and the seller.

If the seller does a runner/goes bust/doesn't deliver then you claim against the bank when you've used a credit card, so you're almost guaranteed to get your cash back (and it's up to the bank to chase the seller to get their money back). But this has nothing to do with fraudulent transx made on an account.
 
EVH said:
Not sure If I can say because of the competitor rule.

It was the large "dog" music shop. Mods, feel free to edit.

I am only thinking this because the card was lying on the counter and some chav with a cameraphone could easily have snapped the number as the tills are very close together.

I haven't fuelled my car in a week, so i'm trying to pin it down to something I've done lately which is why I'm drawing up blank. I've rarely used it. (I suppose they could have cloned it a while back, and not used it)
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Nope, they need more than just the CC number... they'll have copied the data stored on the magnetic strip on the back of the card too. Even if someone took a photo of your card, that alone isn't enough to allow someone to clone your card.

It's also very possible that this dates back a while. Card details are rarely sold individually, they are traded in batches, so it'll have taken the scammers a while to have amassed enough card details from victims to make it worth their while.
 
I've always tried to avoid credit cards because I never want the temptation to spend more than I have (hence the low overdraft).

At least it's something I will look into. The bank has quoted me a 10 working day turnaround, which is more of a killer than anything. I won't have any money for essentially 2 weeks :(

Also, what happens about the overdraft limit? If it's breached surely they can't charge me £30 now that I've reported it under fraud.
 
You won't be charged for going over your agreed limit. You should find that your bank will agree to increasing it temporarily whilst this is resolved, and will allow you to draw funds over the counter to keep you going until new cards arrive.
 
GarethDW said:
Doesn't matter if it's a credit card or a debit card that has been skimmed...
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No-one is arguing as to whether he will get his money back, the reason that a credit card is a better card to get cloned from a user pov is the hassle. He would have had this dealt with by them, with no leg work needed at all. He could have continued to use another card in the mean time and simply forget all about the one which has been cloned. He would never have been down anything at any point, as it would have been their money, not his.

Not using one for the sake of not being sensible enough to not spend money you dont have is a very weak excuse, the OP is clearly able to refrain from spending else he wouldn't have savings like he does.
 
Dont see why people think its safer to use cards than a whole in the wall - when you put your card into a chip and pin - you have no idea where the wire is going to - the fraudster could be staring you right at the face

I honestly have to smirk at people putting their hand over the chip and pin. seriously, if someone wanted to do fraud on them why would they want to look at you entering your pin when you are clearly entering it on the same device storing your details.
 
codec said:
I honestly have to smirk at people putting their hand over the chip and pin. seriously, if someone wanted to do fraud on them why would they want to look at you entering your pin when you are clearly entering it on the same device storing your details.
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Because a common method of pin theft is via a camera watching you enter it, time logged against card detail records.
 
Well if the 02 money was used to top up a phone then the police could find out whose number it is and at least theyd have a starting point, assumimng of course they had registered.
 
ive had the same thing before altho it was for about a grand and got the money back within a week or so
they spent the money on trainline.com the scumbags
 
People seem to have a fair bit of luck with guessing credit / debit card numbers too, despite extra precautions that are put in place to stop it. Some sites still accept credit cards without CVV checks, though with the push towards universal PCI-DSS methodology is helping counter this, but still can't account for everything. I've known someone who had a credit card from the bank that they never used, it was left at home for emergency expenditure purposes only, and that suddenly got used in transactions.
 
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