Egg on the Ball
A call from the Egg security team asking me to confirm security details. Um no I'll call you back.
A genuine call about some recent transactions, while stuck in the queue I pulled up my recent statement and spotted two transactions I didn't make and apparently there were others currently not listed that had been declined.
So it looks like my card was cloned. Now I don't use it that much and over the last month I've used it in only four physical stores and three virtual stores, two should be protected iTunes and PSN and the last one Amazon should be safe enough. So the physical stores were Debenhams, ToysRUs, and Waterstones in Merry Hill and Sainsbury's in Kidderminster
Not pointing fingers, but only one of those is a store I've never used before and thus are unfamiliar with their readers. [Additional - I've just recalled that one particular store wanted my postcode too for statistical purposes. I normally don't give it out, but juggling two large parcels I wasn't thinking straight]
Anyway if you've used any of those stores recently I recommend you check your statements, your credit card companies might not be as quick as mine.
[Update 9/12 - Well I'm very impressed. They'd called my home and left a message before catching me at work. They'd set a private message that I could find in my account inbox that was also forwarded to my normal email account and I've just found a letter at home asking me to contact them. Difficult to claim I didn't know they were after me :-)]
5 comments:
"your credit card companies might not be as quick as mine."
No need to brag. I remember a few years ago I had my card cloned three or four times in sequence, about a month apart. Then I stopped using my card in Tesco, and it stopped happening. Not to point fingers, but I don't believe in coincidences.
Heh my credit card company's better than yourorsss :-P
This is the first time this has happened to me; I'd almost got complacent about checking the statements, damn three four times though!
Speaking to someone they mentioned it doesn't help that some stores (or banks) have been changing the readers every so often so you can't even tell what they're supposed to look like.
Anyway I presume your company acknowledged the errors and sorted it out?
Yeah. It was HSBC, btw. They've always been very helpful. I do remember a quite silly question they asked, though: "Have you ever used your card for internet shopping?" "Yes." "Was it a secure site?" "Umm... yes?" It was the implication that I'd only used one website ever that got me, as well as the implication that SSL is the only criterion for security.
What, you mean SSL isn't?
I got "Have you told anyone your PIN number?". Refraining to point out it's just PIN not PIN Number I answered with a long "No" rather than the "Oh yes I often recite it as I use it in store" [sigh] I suppose they've got to ask.
OK, one more thing to add to the list of things I have still yet to experience.
As an aside, I would have thought if you could demonstrate that your card stopped getting cloned when you stopped going to Tesco, the company management, the credit card company and/or the police might be interested to hear about it…
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