Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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kcowan
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by kcowan »

beowulf wrote:The best think is to avoid swiping your cards, and use the microchip instead. Magnetic bands are easy to clone, but microchips use encrypted ashes and are practically impossible to clone.
Only retailers that have chip readers must use them if your card is chipped. So a chipped card just reduces the opportunities for cloning. MY last cloned CC was chipped.
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Re:

Post by alingva »

worthy wrote:The PIN number can't be skimmed.
I do not think it is true
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alingva wrote:
worthy wrote:The PIN number can't be skimmed.
I do not think it is true
Congratulations! You just quoted a post from over 8 years ago before chip cards were even introduced.

Anyway the only way a PIN number can be skimmed is either to monitor the keypad or to use a fake PIN pad that records the numbers.

But now with chip cards, you get more security because the chip does not fully divulge the authentication info that would be required to duplicate it correctly.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by Springbok »

Just had a call from BMO Credit Card fraud department.

Apparently 4 minutes prior to the call someone used my US$ card at a Walmart in Indiana and spent $500. We last used the card in April for diesel on way home from USA. I recall one stop where we had to leave CC at cash while we filled with diesel (because diesel pumps were not in main fueling aisle). Could have happened there.

I still have my card and it is a chipped card. To use it at Walmart, the card would have to have been cloned. But down there, they don't use chip and the PIN is not entered.

Must give BMO credit for being on top of this so quickly. All I have to do is destroy my card. A new one will be sent to me.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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And I should extend kudos to Amazon / Chase. My wife is presently visiting our grandchildren in the UK, and after making a couple of small purchases at Gatwick she made a £150 purchase on-line, for delivery in the UK. Amazon called me just a few hours later to check it out ... who knows what would have happened had I not been here to answer the phone :oops:
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Springbok
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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pmj wrote: who knows what would have happened had I not been here to answer the phone :oops:
Same here.

BMO asks us to advise them when and where we will be travelling in USA. Only other thing we use US$ cards for, is to pay Paypal bills.

USA is not as secure as we are when it comes to credit cards. No chips or pins and no portable machines in restaurants. They always take your card to run it through register. Then there is the tipping issue covered in another thread.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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pmj wrote:And I should extend kudos to Amazon / Chase. My wife is presently visiting our grandchildren in the UK, and after making a couple of small purchases at Gatwick she made a £150 purchase on-line, for delivery in the UK. Amazon called me just a few hours later to check it out
The Amazon/Chase website has a Secure Correspondence function (under Account Maintenance) that you can use to contact them. I used this a few years ago to notify them when I first took my new Amazon.ca to Austria. They responded promptly and said they'd update my file accordingly. I had no problems using the card there to make several large Euro transactions, both cash withdrawals and payments.

I haven't bothered to notify them on subsequent trips to Europe and they haven't given me any problems. I've also used the card on several occasions from Canada to make on-line purchases in Euros. Still, if you know you're going to use a credit card in an atypical (for you) way it can't hurt to notify the card company.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by AltaRed »

I think pretty much every CC these days has an option online where you can advise, in a secure manner, your travel plans. Takes a matter of 1-2 minutes. If not, simply phone them.

I've done it every time I have travelled out of country and will be doing it again for 3 separate cards (one of each kind, i.e Visa, MC and Amex) when we travel overseas in July.

Knock on wood, I have never had to deal with a fraud problem with my cards. I have been called perhaps 3-4 times over the years by Visa to query unusual purchases. I welcome this kind of intrusion/interjection.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by yupislyr »

Springbok wrote:But down there, they don't use chip and the PIN is not entered.
Actually they do use chip in the US. Walmart is one of the retailers that have chip terminals. If you use a Canadian chip card down there at the right terminal, you must enter a PIN.

The US has finally clued in and will phase out non chipped cards by Oct 2015 for most retailers and Oct 2017 for ATMs and gas stations . Although it seems many of the banks are issuing chip and signature cards which don't require a PIN to use most, if not all the time. So that kind of defeats part of the purpose of chip cards.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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yupislyr wrote: Actually they do use chip in the US. Walmart is one of the retailers that have chip terminals. If you use a Canadian chip card down there at the right terminal, you must enter a PIN.
Yes, Walmart has chip terminals. I used one this morning in Niagara Falls N.Y.. It caught me by surprise as I wasn't expecting a chip terminal, but when I slid the card as per the instructions, it then had me insert the chip card (ie. it "knew" the difference in the card). Utilizing the chip feature must be a relatively new feature - or my memory is going - as I don't recall being prompted to use it before today in the states.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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Interesting that they're finally getting there. USA is definitely several years behind on chips. My cousin in California was preparing for a trip to Asia this past winter and learned that most international merchants won't even take non-chip cards anymore, so she went hunting for a chip card that could be issued in the US. Many bank CSRs didn't even know what she was talking about. She finally ended up with a Chase Sapphire Preferred chip card which is actually a rather weighty metal card which served the purpose nicely.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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A friends had a chip and PIN on his US CC and was keen on trying it in Canada. They just asked him for his signature. He had hoped to test it out before going to Europe. They seem to recognize the chip sometimes. Walmart was one of the retailers mentioned.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by tedster »

Only slightly OT :oops: :) I had a voice mail message left for me by name from a "Mr John Smith" of the Ontario Lottery Gaming Commission. he advised me that I had won 2.5 Million Dollars and a ne car and to call 1-876-325-3542 to see about collecting. He had a West Indian accent. So I saved the message and went to the OLG site. Their number does not correspond and I did not see any link to report this kind of fraud. So I emailed them. Who falls for this?
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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tedster wrote:Only slightly OT :oops: :) I had a voice mail message left for me by name from a "Mr John Smith" of the Ontario Lottery Gaming Commission. he advised me that I had won 2.5 Million Dollars and a ne car and to call 1-876-325-3542 to see about collecting. He had a West Indian accent. So I saved the message and went to the OLG site. Their number does not correspond and I did not see any link to report this kind of fraud. So I emailed them. Who falls for this?

You are not the only one who won:

http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-876-325-3535

But they must have several numbers.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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OLG emailed me back telling me to notify the antifraud centre. So I did just that. Got a "do not reply" answer.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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HardWorker wrote:Got a call this morning from my CC company asking if I'm in India, or if I've lent my card to someone in India, and I've the answer is no to both. So someone in India has managed to get at least one cash advance out on my card. It's a zero liability card, but still inconvenient and a little disheartening.

I have a chip card, and I use pay pass as much as possible, and obviously it's still not enough. This wasn't a case of a reader picking up my chip, because they needed my PIN to get a cash advance.

Well, poop, not even 2 years later and I've been hit again. Close to $8,000 in travel charges :shock:

Most of the transactions went through a couple of days ago, but 2 are still pending. Worst yet, is the bank's computers didn't pick up on the transactions, and I discovered it when I decided to check my card online. I asked the fraud investigator why this wasn't caught, and he didn't know. I told him I'm very careful with my PIN, and I check my statement online regularly, and he said that's about all I could do. I used my card in London, England about 4 months ago and I think that's how they got me. I didn't have to use my PIN, but just swipe my card, so it was likely copied there.

The 2 pending transactions were for a travel agency, so I'm really hoping someone bought the tickets and they'll be met by a cop at the airport. I'm very unlikely to hear the outcome of this investigation, but God I hope they caught. I so wish my card company would tell me to avoid a certain gas station or somewhere I use my card at, but I know that won't happen either. I used to check my online accounts daily, then changed to once a week, but I think I'll do 3 a week from now on.

I really don't know what else to do? I know I'm not responsible for fraudulent transactions, but twice in 2 years? I hope they don't suspect I had anything to do with it.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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Good news/bad news

The bank will keep you whole!

The incompetence will be subsidized by all their customers.

I had a case of a compromised credit card. By triangulation, three of us in Mexico determined that there was only one place where we had all used the compromised cards. (Just luck that I had only used my MC at his place.) We knew the restaurant owner and he was in denial. Eventually he hired a mole and determined that the card fraud was just a tiny portion of the rip-off. He was losing 25% of his revenue. A long-term employee (25 years) had turned bad owing to the tough economy. Started gradually and then got bolder.

Last year, my CIBC Visa was used to charge a car purchase in Bathurst NB ($8179 used). I asked the fraud department: "What part of me being in Mexico do you not understand?" Not even a phone call to verify ID on such a large amount from out of province?

My debit card was compromised at a low fee ATM in PV. A $500 charge for Mexico City two months after the compromise. We reported the violation to both banks and the Mexico bank did nothing about their compromised ATM for over 6 months. After all, they were getting ATM fees and NOTB banks were eating the losses.

The recent efforts with PINs is just making it hard for legitimate cardholders to use them but not deterring the fraudsters. At least their data encryption has held up.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by HardWorker »

PINs are only good in Canada. Apparently they can easily skim your card, duplicate it and use it in the states. Actually I think many gas stations don't require PINs at the pumps, and neither do online purchases.

Lucky for the bank I checked online, or clearly they would've used up all of credit before throwing the card away. Like I said, I really hope they have a cop waiting at the airport, if it was tickets they bought.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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kcowan wrote:Last year, my CIBC Visa was used to charge a car purchase in Bathurst NB ($8179 used). I asked the fraud department: "What part of me being in Mexico do you not understand?" Not even a phone call to verify ID on such a large amount from out of province?
And yet when my business partner and his wife had his and her CIBC AP Visa cards, when he was filling his rental car on a business trip in NJ while she was trying to fill her car in Tronno (each transaction under $50) CIBC's computer managed to detect this as possible fraud and desperately called their home to verify. Who writes these @#$%ing programs?
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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kcowan wrote:My debit card was compromised at a low fee ATM in PV
Yeah, and now that Mastercard and Visa have their names written on bank cards, get ready for the fraud party in your chequing account. I just hope that my experience in the US (with bank card fraud) is not a leading indicator of what to expect with the Canadian banks.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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Bylo Selhi wrote: And yet when my business partner and his wife had his and her CIBC AP Visa cards, when he was filling his rental car on a business trip in NJ while she was trying to fill her car in Tronno (each transaction under $50) CIBC's computer managed to detect this as possible fraud and desperately called their home to verify. Who writes these @#$%ing programs?
I had a similar issue, wife was in Florida with friends buying grocery stuff and I was using the card back home to buy gasoline.

She used the household card by reflex since it was grocery... got a call from MBNA because of 2 transactions on the same day in different countries.

I was ok with it, but both amounts were really small also.
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by kcowan »

Grocery stores in PV take Amex and I always forget to tell them I am going. But they call the store and verify me in real time. Much better than calling me at home in Vancouver!

In another instance, I made 2 identical Interac money transfers to different RBC customers. When TD did their robocall to my home suspecting fraud, I erased the message and then called TD fraud department and told them I never expect any important information to be left on an answering machine (accessible to our housekeeper). They gave me the run around and I had to escalate to a supervisor before I regained access to my online account. Now I have my MagicJack number as primary contact. That way I get their messages via secure email wherever I am in the world. (Technology to rescue us from these bozo banks!)

(BTW these new chip debit cards have really screwed the pooch. They don't work where the old mag stripe cards did on ATMs. So I have been left without money in Mexico, Turkey and Switzerland. Never happened with the old cards.)
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by adrian2 »

HardWorker wrote:PINs are only good in Canada.
I was prompted to enter a PIN on my Visa purchase in Mexico (the clerk was kind of dumbfounded that I did not need to sign, and I explained to him in my broken Spanish that the PIN functions as a signature).
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

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HSBC asks for my 5 digit PIN and obviously uses the PIN to verify the debit card. It is hit and miss in Mexico depending on the acquirer. Same with credit. But more miss than hit. :roll:
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Re: Bank and Credit Card Fraud

Post by Lucy2001 »

For a few years I lived part time in Vancouver and Toronto plus I traveled extensively. RBC drove me nuts calling my home phone in Vancouver about a purchase in Toronto then cancelling my card if I didn't reply in less than 24 hours. How am I supposed to know that they left a message on my Vancouver home phone? (good tip re: magic jack btw), I told them repeatedly about my homes, two cars and international travel but if I bought gas in Toronto it was pretty much a guaranteed shutdown. It settled down when my Chip card finally arrived, but after all the non-fraud shutdowns the chip card was skimmed somehow in New York in June. We caught it fairly quickly, no liability, but it's amazing that the new security feature is worthless in the largest economy in the world.
Dumb question here, but - are bank credit cards linked automatically to your chequing and saving accounts? I've always just used a debit card internationally for cash (Turkey, London, Beijing, Greece no problem getting cash), never even thought to insert a credit card in the machine for a cash withdrawal..the thought of which leaves me cold, what with cash, credit card limits and LOC availability someone could really get hammered by a skim.
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