Warning; Mrs Green has a rant!
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Missing; from a store near you
Did I tell you I had my debit card cloned?
I discovered it when my bank rang me to ask if I had just bought a pair of expensive football trainers. “This isn’t your usual spending pattern” the cashier mused.
As I would rather run around naked in the snow than have anything to do with football, we realised my card had been used for a shopping spree….
The person in need had bought trainers, been out for pizza and bought a number of meaningless things from various gadget shops. It was basically piles of disposable plastic crap and ‘instant hit’ gimmicks that had been bought on my card – oh the irony!
Funnily enough, it wasn’t the fact they’d spent over £2000 of my money and left me in the red that got to me at all. It was more of the ‘What’s become of the human race?’ aspect. I mean, if they came to me and said they NEEDED clothes for their kids or they had no money to heat their home or they were desperate for food, I’m the kind of woman who would be pretty likely to help them out.
But it wasn’t even that. It was more the fact of WHAT they bought. Sure, pay for your baby’s heart surgery with it but don’t buy freakin’ TRAINERs, PIZZA and endless plastic crap that you don’t even want!!
If you need pizza come and sit by my fire while I MAKE you pizza with my love top of the ingredients list.
Take the partner of your dreams to a fancy restaurant (Pizza Hut not included)and buy your mother something nice to say thank you for all that she does. Buy a plant for your neighbour and pay for your Granny to have her cataracts done, just don’t waste my money on trash that will end up in the landfill in a few weeks time when you’re bored with it!
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oh that’s rubbish!
Perhaps watching this will cheer you up
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_phillips_creative_houses_from_reclaimed_stuff.html
I’m so sorry this happened to you. It seems to be happening more and more. Hope it gets sorted soon. Wouldn’t it be great if the person is caught, and they not only had to pay it back, but also do public service in a way that would educate and help the environment. One can only hope. All the best to you and your family.
Kathy
didn’t you british pioneer cloning? see what playing with little pieces of plastic will do–propagate the plastic species…so sorry for you–it is endemic to the us, now it’s everywhere. where did i put the key to the bed springs safe?
Sorry to hear that you had this happen to you. Only you could think like that about what was spent with your money.
Rant away! I thoroughly sympathise! Several months ago, my husband received an unexpected parcel containing some Man Utd merchandise; as he is completely unimpressed by football, we thought it was a joke gift from a friend, but then realised the invoice was for our joint account using his debit card number. We checked the account online and we had been charged for the item, along with several other fraudulent transactions; utility companies we had never dealt with, online betting when we are anti-gambling; so we got onto the bank by phone, had his card stopped and they put a fraud investigation into action. It turned out that his card had been cloned online (apparently a company had someone hack into their website and put spyware on it to steal card details) and now, of course, we always use a credit card online (so that we would have seen the fraud on the bill and reported it and just paid for the legitimate items). We had a total of about £600 go out of our account but we did get it all back; fortunately we had a high overdraft (which we never use) and that covered it. It took a couple of months to sort out; we had a couple of telephone interviews with the investigators and had to complete some paperwork; it made us feel dirty although the people were very polite and sympathetic. We were asked who else had access to his card e.g. teenage children and for the IP (Internet Protocol) number for our computer, so they could check whether the transactions had been done by us! We weren’t out of pocket at all at the end but we felt so angry, especially when we got William Hill magazine coming through the post!
Oh dear, I hope it gets sorted for you soon. I had my card cloned too; but picked up on it before they spent much (two film tickets somewhere in Bristol) but my bank were really helpful and refunded the money within a day or so of calling them.
Who’d have thought card cloning happened in the Forest of all places
And the banks are trying to do away with cheques to make us even more dependent on the dreaded plastic!
I really don’t think their security can be adequate. My PayPal card was cloned, but bless Paypal they picked it up immediately and cancelled the card, so I didn’t lose anything. A young mum locally has had her debit card cloned recently, as has my best friend who is a judge! Pam and I now use cash for all normal transactions. Getting out cash every Monday as “housekeeping” is also a good discipline in terms of spending. I now only use a credit card for on-line purchases, and then only from sites that my gut instinct says are OK. But its still, in my view, a bit of a risk.
Warmest, Chris.
@[email protected]: This video is so inspiring. Dan Pillips is similar to Michael Reynolds with his Earthships. It’s my dream to buy some land here in Australia and build an eco house.
@Mrs Green – I do hope the credit card company refunded you. What a nightmare.
Ridiculous and way too ironic. (Although, the thought of scammers stealing credit cards and then buying plants for their neighbours is pretty funny)
There are certain transactions that seem to trigger the banks interest and are worth watching out for.
When one of our cards was cloned, we had a phone call from the bank over a very innocuous top up bill from a mobile phone company for about £20. We knew it wasn’t ours because it wasn’t a company we use, but the bank didn’t know that necessarily. Apparently it’s a common test to see if the payment goes through. If it does, you can expect a very large bill a bit later on…
Do you remember this was all supposed to stop once they got rid of the carbon copies of the card they used to make? I can remember getting back from a holiday when I was a student nurse 20 years ago to find a letter from the bank saying someone had withdrawn £800 (2 months wages!) from my account using my card. Fortunately they believed that it wasn’t me, despite the fact I still had my card and I could eat that summer!
I do sympathise over the crap they bought too.
@[email protected]: Thanks Nic! I love the TED talks; SOoooo inspiring.
@adomesticprincess: Thank you Kathy; I like your suggestion about community service; unfortunately, from what I can gather, people simply get away with it …
@nadine sellers: Bed springs LOL! I’m sure hoping they are safe or you might become an insomniac …
@Julie Day: Thanks Julie! I guess some of my thinking is somewhat original 😀
@Attila: Ewwww, that sounds a horrible ordeal for you. This isn’t even being investigated; it’s just put down as ‘one of those things’ that apparently nothing can be done about. Ahem; whatever …
@Poppy: Well, the Pizza hut transaction was somewhere up north, so I think this was an online hack
@Chris: Chris, I too use cash whenever possible, but for online purchases it’s either paypal or a card. After our telephone conversation the other day I shall only be using sites with the https URLs 😉
@Alex: Thanks Alex; an eco build would be wonderful wouldn’t it – I hope that manifests for you 🙂
@Jen CleanBin: Well, ya know, I was just making a point LOL!
@Hazel: Hi Hazel, yes, a common one is a donation of £1 to charity as a ‘test’; if this goes through unscathed then the spending spree commences.
Your response confused me!
I had money taken from my account, but they think it was because of something I’d bought online. They did a few dummy runs that I didn’t spot and then bought tickets to a concert in Australia!
My bank were brilliant when I went to them, so no complaints there 🙂
Bit scary for a while though, as we were about to go on holiday and my bank account had been wiped out!
@Poppy: Glad it was all sorted, Poppy; nothing like that happening before a holiday to keep you on your toes 😉