My brother's bankcard got skimmed

G

gaius

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He's only a young fellow, barely out of college and was going to withdraw some money from an ATM only to find that he didn't have the funds.

Checked his balance online and discovered that over €700 had been removed from his current account leaving him with the grand total of €20.

Frantic calls to the bank followed and it transpired that his laser card had been used in an online purchase. The bank say that they don't know what the purchase is and won't know until "it comes through". That sounds fairly wishy washy to me. Meanwhile, my brother has enough cash in his pocket to last him a week so he's hoping it gets sorted by then.

Has this happened to anybody here?
What happened? Did they get their money back?
Does the fact that the skimmer used it for an online transaction mean that they'll be able to catch them?
 
Hi happened to me recently, last month. Only discovered it when card was not accepted in shop despite having ample funds. Rang bank - there were 3 transactions pending. Online purchases adding up to €1500. Bank could not react until they actually hit my account. In any case they 'investigated'. Money was credited back to my account in less than 10 days. They rang to say it was being credited back. I asked how it had happened, had my laser card been skimmed etc? They had absolutely no idea how it happened (the skimming if that is what it was or the fraud) and didn't seem particularly interested in finding out.

Hope that helps.

A
 
It's very common, sad to say. In fairness to the banks, it is difficult to track down where the actual scimming took place, it could have been at an ATM they own, one owned by another bank or at a shop with a cashier seeing and remembering your PIN.

Your brother should ask that is has been reported to the banks internal fraud people and should follows up his calls with something in writing. He also should ask for the bank to cancel his card and issue him with a new one.

Banks are usually happy to refund unless they have a question mark as to whether or not the person facilitated the fraud, either through carelessness or by working in collusion with the frauster
 
It may not have been skimmed - has he used it online ? If so the card details may have been retrieved from whomever processed his card online.
Remember that you don't need a PIN number to use a laser or credit card online - you just need the number, ccv, expiry date and name.

I have worked (hacked) some websites where all of that information was being held unencrypted on the webserver due to the web developer "forgetting" to disable part of the payment processing function. One of the websites were using Realex (very secure) to process payments, but the website was also capturing and storing the card information.

On that particular website I was able to show the site owner the details of over 4500 credit cards stored on his system. Needless to say the site owner is still having heart attacks over that one :)
 
Thanks for responses.
Looks like it was online purchases for A-Wear and Komplett. Bank are still investigating.
 
I noticed on Tuesday that transactions had been taken out from my account last week. I rang the bank first thing on Tuesday morning to cancel my card. I've reported it to the guards (the impression I got was that he wasnt bothered about doing anything about it) and I also went to the bank who are investigating it. One of the transactions were for Komplett too. The woman in the bank said that that site is often used :S

Just hope I get the money refunded!
 
I got done a few months ago - A-Wear was the biggest purchase.

Stupidly enough, they also paid for an e-toll tag. So a few enquiries to the toll people and I had the licence number of the thief, which I passed along to the Guards. Never heard anything back.

I'm pretty sure my number was copied down when I left my wallet overnight at work.
 
@sean.c - thats gas that you said they paid the etoll fee - They paid it with my card too, I gave the details of the transactions to the guards and told them that they should be able to get the details of the car licence from that but I've a feeling they wont bother :( its a shame because they are no doubt repeat offenders
 
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