September 29, 2008 | posted by Pam Atherton in Banking, Savings |

You think it will never happen to you, and then it does.

While withdrawing money from a cash machine a few weeks ago, a man approached me saying that it had just swallowed his card.

I told him to go away, thinking that he was going to grab the cash when it came out, but lo and behold, no cash was forthcoming and the machine refused to return my card.

Having waited a few minutes to see if machine might change its mind, I walked away thinking nothing of it.
 
On reporting the incident to my bank the next day, I was told that the card wasn’t in the machine and must have been stolen - probably by the man who had approached me and who had got my PIN by shoulder surfing when he spoke to me.

To my horror, he had swiped a cool £1,000 from my account in the space of a few hours - £600 in cash and £400 in shop purchases.

APACS, the UK payment association says that £35m was lost through cash machine fraud in 200.

Sandra Quinn of  APACS, says: “The three principal methods criminals use to steal cards and card details at cash machines are card-trapping devices, whereby the fraudster inserts a card catcher device into the card slot; skimming from the magnetic stripe at cash machines and shoulder-surfing, whereby the fraudster observes the cardholder inputting their PIN and then uses distraction techniques to steal the card.”
 
By UK fraud standards, my experience was small beer. I know people who have had their entire identity stolen and had mortgages, personal loans and credit cards taken out in their name for months before they have even become aware of it.

Trying to unravel that sort of  fraud is a nightmare and can take months, if not years, to sort out.

In my own case, I had to make numerous calls to the bank’s call centre, just to report the loss of the card. I then had to visit my branch, complete two forms (one of which I had to wait to come in the post). Having done all that, I am still awaiting a refund.

The upshot is that I won’t be withdrawing any money from street-side ATMs anymore. I’ll stick to the cash machines inside branches during banking hours.

For more on card protection and identity fraud:

http://www.defaqto.com/consumer/credit-cards/card-protection.aspx
http://www.defaqto.com/consumer/credit-cards/guide-identity-theft-insurance.aspx