Debit card compromised

[Airspeed]

Tried to do some shopping, and had my card declined
Check, yes, money definitely in the account, took Mrs A's card, in case mine was damaged.
Declined.
Rang the bank, and after the usual "unexpectedly high number of phone calls" lie, after 20 minutes, I got to speak to a person.
Played 20 questions proving that I was me.
"Have you tried to carry out transactions with Hershies (spelling?) "
No.
"We located some unusual activity on your account involving these people"
Definitely not us.
"So we blocked your card"

Short answer is that we can still pay bills etc on line, it's just the card use that's been blocked, and we need to get cash over the counter until the new cards arrive, to do shopping.
They didn't go into details of where the transaction originated, just said that there are so many ways of getting basic information about card numbers that they couldn't be definite.
Thankfully, they intercepted the attempt, and no money was lost, but talk about "one nuclear bomb can spoil your whole day".

[Nigel H-J]

At least no money had been taken out from your account Mike, some are not so lucky and then you can have one 'ell of a time trying to prove you innocence.

It may be a bit of inconvenience to you in not being able to use your card but at least the back is looking after your interests.

When I had my card statement come through there had been a transaction of around £32 for a sea crossing to (I think) Holland. We reported this to the card company who issued us both with new cards and the money was returned and they would make enquiries into who that person was via the Ferry Company.

We have not heard anything regarding their enquiries or whether any-one had been charged for fraud, wish they would advise as it means that where-ever that fraud on my card took place and how they got my details, I would refuse to shop there ever again but unfortunately card companies are not that open as they should be.

Regards
Nigel.

[Tako_Kichi]

My wife had to get her credit card (which is actually a second card on my account) changed recently after we noticed strange activity when we were checking the online bill information prior to payment. We noticed a payment of $5.41 CAD to Apple.com which set off the alarm bells as nobody in the house uses anything that has a name starting with an 'i' (iphone, ipad, imac, iwatch etc.) on principle. We contacted the credit card company who then passed us on to their fraud section and after a brief interrogation to establish that the transaction was not down to us they refunded the money, cancelled my wife's card and issued a new one. They then informed us that a few days prior to this transaction they had intercepted an similar transaction to Apple.com for $400+ CAD but they red-flagged it and declined the payment as it did not correspond with our normal card usage!

After this event my wife called her father who is a massive Apple 'fan boy' and he checked his credit card statement and he discovered an unusual payment amongst his dozens of monthly payments to Apple. This time it was for $0.01 CAD, yes that's right....1 cent! He cancelled his card immediately and got a new one issued.

Apparently there is currently a scam going around Canada (and possibly the rest of the world too) whereby scammers, thieves and general dirtbags are using computerized 'bots' to make online transactions for small amounts to various online stores using computer generated credit card numbers. The methodology is that they try sequentially generated card numbers until they get a hit for a good number and once the small value transaction has been accepted by the seller they hit it with a big one!

Bottom line, check your monthly statements for unusual activity and act rapidly if you spot anything unusual. Stay safe, the dirtbags are everywhere!

[TSR2]

I have my bank app on my iPhone (yes an I device- which is infinitely more secure than android)
Anyway, every time there’s a transaction on my account, other than direct debts, I get a notification pop up straight away, regardless of the amount, and regardless of how the transaction was processed (I.e. card, contactless, PayPal, applepay etc) This means I can see instantly any transaction and query it immediately if I don’t recognise it. It works very well.