Sometimes it pays to be "paranoid" thieves getting debit card pass

Last night my boyfriend and brother went to downtown Toronto to see an NHL game. Anyway my boyfriends bank card wouldn't work, so he just thought it was strange and used a different card.

Today we were sleeping and get a message that his bank called to talk to him because they froze his account for security reasons, and we're like ok... back to sleep.

Later on, he calls the bank back. They said someone had stolen his card info and used a camera to watch him dial in his password and tried to take out money. I am not sure how it works but it's basically like they have his card. When they tired to use it at a bank machine it wouldn't work.

So he's lucky his bank caught on and froze the account. Now he has to go in, get a new card and change the password.

It's just a shame to know a gas station or store he visits regularly would be doing something like this, we wracked our brains trying to think of all the places he's used it lately and it's all normal places we usually go to. That's pretty shitty. I was saying to him how I hate blocking the keypad when I punch my pass in cause I don't want to look paranoid but I guess I will start. I never even thought of a camera recording you would be used against you for your pass and that a device would be in there to make a copy of your card.

Anyone else ever have something like this happen or something similar?

 

A security cam? I think it's paranoia week on DPTv

 

Lol, no, the bank told him that's exactly what they did, but not a security cam, a spy cam, like those little nanny cams, pretty shitty eh? They could have put us in the hole, like we don't have enough bills each month!

 

You never hear about people stealing credit cards to donate to charity I wonder what would happen then....

glad nothing happened...that would've sucked, but i think most banks are on to it now and catch on.

Anyone willing to go to jail to publicize their site? You could wear a mask with your blog url on it

 

It's called cash machine skimming. Small devices are fitted onto the cash machine: one to skim the card and one to record the pin number going in on the keypad. Simple but effective.

Here's some info from Snopes on what to look for:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/atmcamera.asp

 

Thanks mcfox!

 

That's really interesting. I have often been concerned that at a gas station for example you just swipe your card and fill up gas. With the cost of gas rising it is no wonder people are staking out gas stations.

People steal identities all over the place, even on places like this. On the site I used to visit the same guy I was talking about in the other thread used to register closed accounts and impersonate people on the site. It was one of the reasons he was banned.

If you think about it you wonder why people would do things like this but with the hidden aspect of the internet it is easy to see why. I guess people start off practicing on the internet and it escalates once they see what they can get away with.

If you use a credit card to make a long distance phone call in a train station for example there are people watching you from a distance. A friend of mine works for a bank and there were incidents of people taking one dollar out of everyone's account and depositing it in an offshore account. They got busted but identity theft abounds.

On another site I was on someone sent a member a bogus Pay Pal email stating that she needed to verify her account and she typed in her account and password and then the person cleaned out her account.

Never reveal information. That's how the world has come to be. If you enter information with a key pad cover the key pad with one hand to hide it.

The elderly are especially vulnerable to things like this.

 

I watched a programme about this sort of thing.

Apparently it's happening more and more. Along with people actually stealing your identity! (always shred important papers with your details on, instead of just throwing them out folks) coz people actually go through your garbage - it's crazy.

Anyway this one person got scammed at a bank - something you wouldn't even think twice about...but he scanned his card through a little machine thing. Yet the thieves had made an exact replica machine and put it next to the original one, and when the man put his card through it - the false machine scanned allllllll his details so the crooks had them.

This one in London was caught on CCTV footage - a women went to pin at a hole in the wall and there was a man and a woman waiting behind her. Anyway just when the lady had pushed her card into the machine, the man told the lady ''you dropped something'' so she bent down to see what she had dropped and literally within 2 seconds flat he had removed the card, put it into a scanner thing and stolen all her details and then put it back into the machine by the time she's stood up.

It was such an interesting programme...and really made me think. I think in this case it would pay off to be paranoid. Least no one will fuck u over. I would subtely cover my hand when typing in pin numbers etc. u just can't be too careful in this day & age. *draws breath*