OT - Someone stole my $$

[dave b]

I log into my bank account to pay some bills this morning, and lo and behold if someone didn't clean out my account.

They did a bunch of ATM withdrawals, even managed to go above the daily limit.

Anyone know anything about this kind of crime? They didn't have my card or PIN, but somehow they managed to use an ATM to withdraw all but about $4 of my money. Is it possible someone made a copy of my card and did this? The bank claims there's no way it was a bank mistake, and they are looking into it now, but how did someone use my card 5 miles away when the card has been in my pocket all day???

@$@#$

[mikey535im]

Is it possible that you may have left the ATM with the screen saying 'would you like another transaction?' and someone behind you took advantage of that situation?
Mike

[BigD]

Do you pay by debit at gas stations? My roommate's brother runs these scams all the time and he says by FAR the easiest place to swipe debit or credit card info is at the gas station machines. If you do, before you go to the cops, look up the last place you did this.


I log into my bank account to pay some bills this morning, and lo and behold if someone didn't clean out my account.

They did a bunch of ATM withdrawals, even managed to go above the daily limit.

Anyone know anything about this kind of crime? They didn't have my card or PIN, but somehow they managed to use an ATM to withdraw all but about $4 of my money. Is it possible someone made a copy of my card and did this? The bank claims there's no way it was a bank mistake, and they are looking into it now, but how did someone use my card 5 miles away when the card has been in my pocket all day???

@$@#$

[dave b]

Do you pay by debit at gas stations? My roommate's brother runs these scams all the time and he says by FAR the easiest place to swipe debit or credit card info is at the gas station machines. If you do, before you go to the cops, look up the last place you did this.

how do they do this?

[dave b]

Is it possible that you may have left the ATM with the screen saying 'would you like another transaction?' and someone behind you took advantage of that situation?
Mike

[G Feller]

First of all, that totally blows and I hope you get your money back somehow.

I think most ATMs have the security feature by now that prompts you to re-enter the password before that additional Xaction is allowed. Anyway, I don't know how much money you're short, but ATMs have those little cameras . . . I know the bank tracks the time of those Xactions, and (especially if the ATM used was that of your bank) I would insist that they find the footage from the time the Xaction was done. I would also file a police report ASAP.

Good luck.




Is it possible that you may have left the ATM with the screen saying 'would you like another transaction?' and someone behind you took advantage of that situation?
Mike

[rickm]

I'd also consider calling the police and filing a report, at least see what they can do. If it's a console ATM then they should have film of the withdrawals.

I never use my debit card anymore, there is no security, even if it says "Visa" on it. I had someone hit me up for $600.00 to some gambling site, they address the person used when they signed up for the account - via a 3rd party "credit" company used so folks who's visa cards won't let them spend at a gambling site can be credit, I guess it's like paypal - wasn't anywhere CLOSE to mine (I live in NC, the culprit in AZ). The place that took the charge wasn't too keen on helping until I'd said that I'd already called the FBI and the RCMP. I got everything back the next day.

[BigD]

Don't remember all the ways but they range from "duh" to pretty clever. First, the damn buttons on the machines are so huge, they need to be blind not to be able to see what pin you're punching in. Then, they have it fail when you first insert the card to read off the info (or keep a transaction open), and make you reinsert. Most just think they were clumsy in inserting the card. Or when you pay inside, they can swipe it into a reader first, then the real machine (not like you're looking, or can see if you were). And either watch your pin, or get your license and hope you come back and use the elephant keypad. Apparently others can tinker with the machines where they charge you the same thing again later. When people see a gas station entry on their bill, do they try to remember if the day matches?

I still use VISA at gas stations because they have insurance and don't ask questions. You call them, say that you were ripped off, and they give you the money back. Otherwise, if I used Esso (only use 94 Sunoco for the good cars), I'd use the speedpass. There's always cash. But cash sucks.

http://www.canadiancreditcenter.com/CCC-media-views15.htm


how do they do this?

[Tiger]

ATM takes picture during processing... hope they caught them on file. To fool an ATM system is pretty tough and usually inside job. I heard of a scam where you use one of those portable ATM at quickie mart etc... anything that is not national bank... and thieves used your info captured on that machine to make their own card and you pin number.

[Tiger]

it may be possible they also got these info online via order processing... if you used your debit card...

[AllanS]

Yeah, there's a pretty high tech method circulating, usually around gas stations and such. They attach a device to the slot where you slide your card in and it actually reads the card via a digital camera. Some guy did a write up online on it, and dissassembled one that he found on a local atm.

[Jon K]

They have personal card scanners... if you used the card ANYWHERE, a restaraunt... hotel... any where at all where you hand your card, there are people who scan them, it saves the card # and bank etc... its not hard to get PINs.

[dave b]

I'm supposed to have my money back by noon tomorrow in the form of a provisional credit. In retrospect, I only used the card as intended, but I guess even that is careless. I always checked to make sure that I closed out a transaction, and the card has never left my sight. However, I did use it at gas stations and grocery stores all the time.

From now on, I'm only going to use my card at ATMs inside the bank. All my other purchases will be cash or CC. American Express (my bank) has been very helpful so far, but I would have expected them to stop the card once some guy has been standing at an ATM making big withdrawals for 5 minutes.

For what it's worth, it was at a 7-11 ATM that the guy did all the action. Didn't the person working there become suspicious when someone is standing at an ATM doing numerous transactions?!

AMEX did agree that the scam is not unheard of.

Oh well. Some criminal's having a good time on me.

[warton]

Think of how long it might have been before you caught it if it weren't for on-line banking.

I once had my Visa # ripped off by some friendly person in Belarus. I emailed the on-line retailer who accepted the transaction and asked why the hell someone with a billing address in Oregon buying $850 worth of computer parts to be delivered to an all-too-recently East Bloc country didn't raise some kind of flag. Anyway, I managed to get the email address of the person who placed the order, and had a fun little email conversation wherein he/she denied being a thief because 1) he/she hadn't received the parts yet and 2) the credit card number is just a number, which can't belong to anyone, so they didn't steal anything (!).

I ended with a spiteful message along the lines of "even if I am forced to pay the bill (which I won't be because of Visa fraud regulations we have in civilized countries) it's less than 3 days pay for me, probably more than you make in 4 months, if you even have a job. In the meantime I don't have to live with being an immoral *******. And BTW, those two Zip drives you ordered are going to fail catastrophically just when you least expect it..." that last being a reference to the Click of Death Iomega drives are famous for... ;-)

Peter

[Unregistered]

For what it's worth, it was at a 7-11 ATM that the guy did all the action. Didn't the person working there become suspicious when someone is standing at an ATM doing numerous transactions?!


They're not working at 7-11 because of their abilities. :) You could call the 7-11 corporate office to see if they'll look into this.

[ilya]

that sucks man, i'm sorry
i neve rhad any money stolen from me once, however i do remember i tried stealing someone's like 4 years ago. yes, i admit it. it didn't work, which was a very good thing


warton, i like that story. kinda reminds me of what my stepdad did when he kept getting spam emails from the same person. he set up a batch file to send THAT guy an email every second, and ran it for about 2 hours or so. so, that's like, 7200 messages. the guy was FURIOUS. he emailed my stepdad back saying "why the hell are you sending me all this junk?!?!". my dad's reply was something like "NOW yiou know how i feel??". needless to say, we never got another email from the guy again

[Tiger]

7-11 atm is not as sophisticated at bank tellers... which is why they use it.

[Tiger]

How do you send batch email? Some software? Hehehehe... too many spam emails got fake emails... so pretty hard to spam the spammer...

[Warren N.CA]

are being used by criminals to collect data from people's cards who use the machines (including the PIN). Then they make a dulplicate card. Banks do not like to admit that this can happen, but it is a common very well known current crime wave, in the Northeast, particularly. I think you bank will be ultimately responsible, but you will need to hold their feet to the fire. You must contact the local police IMMEDIATELY! Suggest you engage an attorney to deal with your bank. NEVER STICK YOUR CARD IN A PRIVATE ATM MACHINE! USE ONLY BANK ATMs.




I log into my bank account to pay some bills this morning, and lo and behold if someone didn't clean out my account.

They did a bunch of ATM withdrawals, even managed to go above the daily limit.

Anyone know anything about this kind of crime? They didn't have my card or PIN, but somehow they managed to use an ATM to withdraw all but about $4 of my money. Is it possible someone made a copy of my card and did this? The bank claims there's no way it was a bank mistake, and they are looking into it now, but how did someone use my card 5 miles away when the card has been in my pocket all day???

@$@#$

[dave b]

I got my money back this morning. Not a bad turnaround, although you get what you pay for in a bank.

From now on, I'm sticking to the legit ATMs and going old school style with the my money - under the mattress.

[ilya]

to send batch emails, he just mad a .bat file in cmd-promt..