Someone withdrew $400 from my bank account!

[tinkerbell_xo]

So I went online to pay bills this morning (still in bed) and right at the top of my online statement it says $400 was withdrawn today!!

I called my bank and they cancelled the card and put it under investigation and said I will be refunded my money within 48 hours.
The people had attempted to withdraw a lot more money after the $400 but thankfully the bank had frozen the account.

My bank told me it was withdrawn in a city outside of Toronto, which is 5 hours away from where I am. I visited Toronto about a month ago, and a month before that I was living in Toronto for the previous 3 years. So I'm assuming it happened when I was living there or when I went back to visit. While I was living in Toronto I had to change my card at least 4 times because somewhere I had used it was under investigation, but they didn't tell me where. Money was never stolen those times.
And I've never lost my card, so it must be somewhere I swiped it.

Does anyone know what they do, these scammers? Do they copy your info from the strip then put it onto an empty card and go use that card places? Cuz I don't know how someone 5 hours away, without my card, can withdraw $400 cash. They must have copied my strip and put it onto another strip?

My card also has the chip, but not everywhere has machines that can use the chip so places still swipe.
From now on if someone wants to swipe any of my cards or doesn't have the machine for the chip I'm either paying with cash or leaving.

 

[buckler]

Does your bank give you an option to send you an email alert everytime a transaction in excess of a certain dollar amount is made? I set mine to alert me for any transaction greater than $0.00 so it emails me everytime I use my card or a check clears. If anyone gets a hold of my card I'll know about it fairly quickly (I check my email a lot and they send the email alerts soon after the card is used).

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

You don't have to have ever been to a remote location for someone to try and use your card.

My DH had his debit card compromised somehow. Someone tried to make a $400 purchase at a Walmart in CA. Ummm....he was nowhere close to there. And bank data showed it to be a physical swipe even though my husband was thousands of miles away from there with his card in his wallet.

Our bank stopped the charge and it never went through. (we of course cancelled all of our cards and got new ones).

When you say "withdraw", are you talking about a purchase or an ATM withdrawal?

I know they can skim data from your card. I dont' know how they can get your pin to do a withdawal from an ATM.

 

[MM27]

my sil had this happen also a few months ago to the tune of $1700. She finally got her money back in her account. What a pain though.

 

[LuvOrlando]

It's terrible this happened to you. This is why I refuse to accept a Debit that acts like a Credit card. If you have a Debit that will only work with a PIN the card, receipt & transaction records are useless to thief because it can only access money with a PIN. I think banks actually make more money from the Visa kind because mine charges me $1 a month to NOT have a Visa... I don't care, I won't budge on this issue. Now if there is new technology that allows them to use PIN only cards I would have to consider throwing them all away and going back to cash & check basics.

 

[golfgal]

Dh had $15,000 in electronics charged to his corporate credit card several years ago after a hotel stay in Miami. The clerk at the hotel lifted his number off his registration paperwork and charged all of this online (before they had the 3 digit security codes but that could have easily been written down too). He was sent to jail. Turns out he was doing this to a lot of people.

 

[MickeySP]

This is why I refuse to accept a Debit that acts like a Credit card. If you have a Debit that will only work with a PIN the card, receipt & transaction records are useless to thief because it can only access money with a PIN

That does not work either the last huge scams TJX Corp etc... have been from readers that also captured the PIN so even Debit Cards can be hacked.
Another is false readers on ATMs that ghost the info anf send it back to the crook. If they want it badly enough they will get it, there is no better mousetrap.

I check my account every day, takes 2 seconds and I have piece of mind.

 

[tinkerbell_xo]

Yes my debit needs a pin. So when I swiped it somewhere and put in my pin they must have copied all that info, then transferred it onto another card and used it.

Yes it was witdrawn from an ATM. Not my banks ATM, one of another bank. That's all they told me. Someone in Vaughn withdrew $400 cash from an ATM, not one belonging to my bank, and then attempted to withdraw a lot more. So they must have either watched me put in my pin or it was given to them through whatever they had done to the swipe machine thing.

And no, I do not have emails sent everytime I make a transaction. I don't know if that is possible at my bank but I might look into it. Right now I can use my card unlimited and I pay $12 a month for that. So I use it for EVERYTHING and carry a small amount of cash. But I think it's time I stop using it so much. I'll switch from the $12 plan to a cheaper one and save some money that way, and carry more cash. Or carry the same amount of cash and just save LOADS of money

 

[tink1969]

My card was compromised months ago. The bank told me the most common scam takes place at gas pumps.
I cover my hand when punching in my pin code and I also make it look like I'm punching it a whole bunch of numbers in the hopes that my real pin code is not revealed.
It's a shame what goes on in today's world.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I seem to remember a scam in the paper not too long ago about an organized crime group dropping off ATM's all over our region (Lehigh Valley PA) and then collecting the data on them for theft. Could be this practice is more widespread. Have you even used an ATM at a place that was 100% reputable? I ask because while I only use ones that are in an actual bank or pull out money along a real purchase at a big chain register, I did notice a ridiculous amount of no name ATM's scattered all around the streets of NYC and they seem to be popping up at little deli's everywhere. My DH almost used one in NYC this weekend but I stopped him remembering the story in the news. He didn't like it but I made him walk with me 4 blocks to a Citibank so he could go inside and take out $.

Yep, there are lots of stories out there. Do a search and you'll see.

 

[swald91]

Oh dear...I hope you get that straightened out...I just recently had a bad virus hit my computer & I lost everything...one good thing is I never do ANY kind of banking on my computer...good luck.

 

[joviroxx]

One of the biggest scams is a little handheld machine people carry. When they take your card, be it at a restaurant, store, etc.. they can swipe your card with this little apparatus. It then saves all your card info that is saved on that black strip.. Then they download it and make new cards.

Believe it or not, it is much safer using CC's and DC's on the internet than in person. Just think about how many times your card is handed over or walked away with. Ive learned to keep an eagle eye on people at stores, can't do anything about the restaurant, but I try.

 

[swald91]

One of the biggest scams is a little handheld machine people carry. When they take your card, be it at a restaurant, store, etc.. they can swipe your card with this little apparatus. It then saves all your card info that is saved on that black strip.. Then they download it and make new cards.

Believe it or not, it is much safer using CC's and DC's on the internet than in person. Just think about how many times your card is handed over or walked away with. Ive learned to keep an eagle eye on people at stores, can't do anything about the restaurant, but I try.

You are SO right!! I know of someone who used theirs at a chinese restaurant & it was copied...it was a police officers cc!!

 

[Maridw]

We just went through this same thing to the tune of $1,232. Neither my DH or I lost our cards, they were in our possession the whole time. We eventually figured out which website the cards were compromised on.

Thankfully the bank was able to stop the last two transactions, but the first three for over $1,100 got through. The bank stopped our cards and issued new ones for us (took 10 days to get here - no cards in the meantime). Everything started on a Wednesday and by the following Monday we had our money back, plus they had stopped the additional transactions.

It is a pain when this happens. We have had to contact companies that we pay automatically with our card to give them the new card number. Check with your bank to see about e-alerts. I found out about this here on the boards and have set it up and it is great. We can get text messages & emails about any high withdrawals - you set the amount to be notified on.

I originally thought our card was compromised on a site that I had never used before and had to give the security code. The bank called about one of the fraudulent charges and it was in my DH's name, so it was when he had ordered a cd and t-shirt from a band's website. He had a problem with placing the order and actually ended up doubling the order.

Good luck to you and sorry this happened. It can be really frustrating.

 

[mlynn]

They just did a thing about this on the Today show.Last week. They put a credit card reader on a ATm and then a camera somewhere to read your pin as you push it in then.They can some how get it on to another card.I''m going to go and find the story.

 

[mlynn]

http://www.fraudguides.com/consumer-atm-debit-card-fraud.asp

 

[tinkerbell_xo]

Thanks to everyone for your stories and input!!

Scammers are oh-so smart.

I never go into shady stores or anything. RARELY go to gas stations since I don't have my own car, I would only go in if I rented or borrowed a car, which isn't often. And I always go to big huge gas stations like Petro Canada, which doesn't mean anything I guess, these places could still scam people but it's just not as likely I wouldn't think.
I really only use my debit card at fast food places (subway, mcdonalds, a&w.. all well known places) or retail stores.
I guess I'll never know where it was copied, but since I had to change my card so many times because places I had used it were under investigation I'm thinking it may have been the same place over and over? But I dunno.
I just know I'll be changing my swiping habits.
I was worried my bank wouldn't be able to give me my money back because I always refuse insurance on my cards but I guess it must be something they do for their customers no matter what.

Thanks everybody!! And be careful with your cards!

 

[mhsjax]

I seem to remember a scam in the paper not too long ago about an organized crime group dropping off ATM's all over our region (Lehigh Valley PA) and then collecting the data on them for theft. Could be this practice is more widespread. Have you even used an ATM at a place that was 100% reputable? I ask because while I only use ones that are in an actual bank or pull out money along a real purchase at a big chain register, I did notice a ridiculous amount of no name ATM's scattered all around the streets of NYC and they seem to be popping up at little deli's everywhere. My DH almost used one in NYC this weekend but I stopped him remembering the story in the news. He didn't like it but I made him walk with me 4 blocks to a Citibank so he could go inside and take out $.

Yep, there are lots of stories out there. Do a search and you'll see.

Happened to us, we use the ATM at a bank and not one of those no name brand.(I don't trust those things). Thankfully our bank put the money back in our acct very quickly. Then the same theft ring got my CC info and charged big ticket items to my credit card. In this case we were lucky that the bank put back our money, because even though we weren't responsible for any money o the credit card, they had to cancel and give us another number. Big problem, we were leaving in 2 days for a Disney cruise, and they couldn't get the other credit card to us. It was the only acct we had, so we just used our Visa debit card and in this case it was the debit card that saved us, not the credit card.

 

[WeLoveLilo05]

My father told me a story last month.
One of his customers went to the ATM at his local bank. He put the card in, punched in the digits and he noticed a funny little device on the machine that was not there before. He tugged on it and it came off. He took it into the bank, this little chip that he ripped off the ATM was storing debit card #s and pin #s!

I went to the ATM last night to withdraw money before going food shopping, I got really nervous, I put the card in and NOTHING was happening, I was hitting cancel, the card would not come out! I sat there for a good minute or 2. Finally the screen popped up asking me for my pin, I just hit cancel and went elsewhere, I thought that was a little odd.

 

[PixieDust32]

There is a way to clone the cards, they can swipe the cards on a separate device in places like restaurants or stores when you hand your card, there is also another software where the can even clone the cards from the peoples wallets or pockets. I saw an investigation on dateline. Many debit cards can be use like credit cards, they can use them online too.Also when you go to ATM's make sure the key pad is attach to the machine, the criminals have special pads and your info including PIN is all copied to their software.