Bank Account Fraud

Wezoin

Yesterday I tried to transfer some money to my savings from my chequings online. I got an error, figured it was just a problem with the website and decided I could wait. I go to an ATM later to get out some money, get a similar error. I go into the bank, they say pretty much everyone has been having the problem and that its some mass bank fraud that hit the city yesterday. They give me a number to call to reactivate my account.

I call the number this morning and they say I have to change my PIN before they'll give me access to my account again. They also say that its because somebody duplicated my card and tried to withdraw cash with it. They wouldn't give me anymore details than that.

So my question is, when they say somebody 'duplicated' my card, does that mean they actually physically have a card the same as mine and figured out my PIN? (either through some technical method or just simply watching me?) or that they just got all the information from it and tried to do a transfer out of my account? I just don't see how someone could physically duplicate my card (and I wouldn't recommend trying to explain it if you know, just because I'm 99.9% sure it'd be against forum rules)

A couple friends of mine got hit too, but they each lost money (one lost $450, the other about $250.) I don't appear to have lost any money. So my next question is, how can I better protect myself from this in the future? Talking to my friends we think we've figured out which store is responsible for the leak (only store we all shopped at in the last month or two, also happens to be a store with the bank two of us use inside it, which was also apparently the most hit bank for this fraud, so the small amount of evidence we have points towards it/one of it's employees)

Deusfaux

your friends shouldnt be liable for the lost money, the bank should cover it afaik

Gdiguy

Deusfaux wrote: »

your friends shouldnt be liable for the lost money, the bank should cover it afaik

This should be true; it used to be that legally debit cards weren't covered in the same way that credit cards are, but most (if not all by now) should refund your money in cases of fraud/theft.

And other than using cash (or a credit card, where at least the damage won't initially come out of your account), there's not much you can really do other than keep an eye out for obviously suspicious things

Heir

When I worked at Chase, we had some thieves going around who would put little devices on the top of the card readers at an ATM. To the untrained eye they looked like they were part of the ATM. Whenever a customer would scan their card, the fraud device would also get your information. A separate camera set up would get your pin.

Then they would come by a day or so later and take the device off and voila.

I'm willing to bet it was something along those lines.

Anyways, in the future, take a look at your atm before you put your card in. Make sure it doesn't look like there's an extra piece of molding in front of the card reader that doesn't quite fit.

Zeon

Generally they just use a piggyback device on the debit terminal, or some less sophisticated criminals will swipe your card through the normal debit machine and then again through their own card reader without you noticing, and then use a camera to grab your pin.

Generally there isnt shit you can do to avoid this, other than not using your debit card at shady places. Personally though i dont worry because even if you lose money it should be covered by your bank, and generally criminals dont fuck around and hit a couple hundred or a couple thousand people at once, setting off alarms at the bank and triggering a lock down on all accounts with similar activity (like you experienced), making it a pretty clear cut case of fraud.