Bank fraud.

[annedonnelly]

i thought banks got a bit concerned/got in touch if you left accounts empty/near empty.

They've never queried it. I can always take my business elsewhere if they don't like it.

 

[Blue Hills]

They've never queried it. I can always take my business elsewhere if they don't like it.

Your empty account business?
My account that became pretty dormant was with hsbc. They started getting tetchy after a few years.

 

[presta]

A guy at the camera club back in the 80s had a phantom withdrawal from a cashpoint somewhere in London. The bank fobbed him off with the usual "our machines don't make mistakes" line, so:
"In that case, you're accusing me of fraud, why don't you report me to Sgt. Plod down at the nick"
"You know the ropes then, do you sir?"
"I would do, I'm a policeman"
"Oh, er, well, there is something we can look into. Let me have your card...."

The upshot was that they discovered an organised gang in card headquarters at Southend manufacturing duplicate cards.

(He also had a till roll proving that he was buying petrol in Maldon at the same time he was supposed to have been withdrawing cash in central London.)

 

[BoldonLad]

Got a text from my bank this morning, some nice person had tried to use my card details to pay for an Asda online grocery shop to the value of £105.. The bank identified it as unusual activity and declined payment.

Half an hour on phone to sort it out and all is good, apart from the fact my card has been stopped, so cash only until new one arrives.

No-one else ever has access to my card, so I can only assume it has been the work of someone working for a company I have made an online purchase from.

I am an online ASDA Shopper (not with your card, I hasten to add). You need the long number on the card, the expiry date, the Name on the card, and, the three digit number on the back of the card. So, to me, that implies it has to be someone who has actually physically seen your card for long enough to note these details, or, has had access to an online transaction you have made.

Pleased to hear your bank caught it!

 

[BoldonLad]

Yes and no. Yes, the data exchange could be intercepted at close range, perhaps by installing some man-in-the-middle hardware. No, because it would be of limited value since reusable account details are never transmitted anywhere between the air interface and the payment provider’s servers.

There is a reliance upon, principally, Apple and Google to maintain adequate security but this is no different to trusting your bank to do the same.

Use a fingerprint, face recognition or equivalent method to lock your phone rather than a simple PIN or pattern. This should reduce the chance of your phone and unlock code being forced from you at knifepoint. Most fingerprint scanners fail with all but the most recently severed fingers.

Yes, but, do the muggers know that? bit late to find out, once they have cut your finger off

 

[BoldonLad]

i thought banks got a bit concerned/got in touch if you left accounts empty/near empty.

In my experience, only if there is no, or, very little activity on the account.

 

[Drago]

Any chance you can expand on that a bit as I'm not aware of that.

No personal card data is transmitted from the phone to the reader just encrypted tokens.

I have no personal idea. I was a skipper on hi tec crime back before this was a thing, and my successor mentioned it while chewing the fat with him a while back. I don't think the data exchange itself is of use, but it provides a means of access to either system or device, I don't know which.

The official line is that it can't be hacked, but that is of course bull. People have gone to prison for it in the US.

Its also been cracked in the oppisite direction and used to make payments with stolen card details, which is supposed to be frighteningly easy.

Nothing is impregnable, and despite Apples haughty talk of security on their handsets we used to crack them with relative ease using a system called KIOSK (and any we couldn't Cellebrite would crack for us), so don't believe a word Apple say.

Ill hopefully see my man next week at my bands gig so I'll pick his brains a bit.

Anyway, having worked on hi tec crime is the main reason I refuse to have a smartphone. The ways in which you can be f****d over via your smartphone are too extensive to even list.

 

[Blue Hills]

Anyway, having worked on hi tec crime is the main reason I refuse to have a smartphone. The ways in which you can be f****d over via your smartphone are too extensive to even list.

I'd be interested in a start, a small list drago.
Declaration - I do have a smartphone but make minimal minimal use of it, the account on it isn't my main one, nothing of any import is sent by it, never use for transactions, has hardly any apps on it (partly because its spec is so low, but I like that)

 

[annedonnelly]

Your empty account business?
My account that became pretty dormant was with hsbc. They started getting tetchy after a few years.

I have other accounts with the same bank. I'm a saver not a spender :-)

 

[Pale Rider]

A good tip for using ATMs is to cover the keypad with one hand while tapping in the PIN number with the other.

That ought to defeat any pinhole camera.

One mob I saw at court also installed a microphone.

The reason is that some users speak the PIN number quietly to themselves as they tap it in.

The gang harvested a few PIN numbers that way.

Needless to say, when I use an ATM I do so with lips firmly closed together.

Another case involved the installation of a complete dummy - but working in the criminal's favour - cash machine fascia, keyboard, screen, and surround.

You'd have thought that just wouldn't look right, but once again a significant number of people were caught out by it.

On t'other hand, the criminals did get nicked, so it wasn't the perfect crime.

 

[SydZ]

I genuinely cannot recall the last time I used an ATM. It is well over 2 years ago.

 

[Cycleops]

It's not only the old that fall for these scams:
BBC News - Fraud warning for young: 'I had £700 stolen'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58499998