Skim scam
Posted on May 16, 2007
Filed Under bank, customer service, fraud, money, shopping | 2 Comments
The last few days have been nervous ones for me because I received a letter from my bank last Friday. But it wasn’t for the usual reasons.
In the letter, Bank of Ireland wrote:
‘The Bank is concerned that your ATM/Laser card details may have been compromised, and we wish to replace your card as a precaution‘.
It’s almost cliched to say it but there was a large sum (to me) of money resting in my account. I got my new cards today so the panic is over.
I must say the bank handled it quite well. They wrote to me with their concerns and included a contact number if I wanted further information. I rang the number and the cynic in me smiled when I got an answer machine. I left my contact details and they did actually phone me back within 20 mins. Apparently, there was a possible skimming scam in the College Green area and my name/bank details were on the list of potential victims. The bank wanted to replace my card to ‘break the chain’. She wouldn’t tell me if it was a cash machine or shop that had been compromised, which is understandable.
The weird thing is that I’ve never used a cash machine around College Green because of the risk of tampered machines (!) and I generally don’t use my laser card. I normally use ATM machines in shops because I believe they’d be harder to interfere with? I’m now wondering if I’m right or wrong in that assumption?
Still, kudos to Bank of Ireland. As promised, my new PIN number arrived yesterday and my new card was in my branch today. I wonder why I haven’t heard much about it the media though?
Co-incidently, two Southerners were arrested in the North for an alleged skimming incident. I love the phrase that breakingnews.ie used –
The pair…were being held on suspicion of going equipped for theft
P.S. I didn’t lose any money.
Comments
2 Responses to “Skim scam”
“I normally use ATM machines in shops because I believe they’d be harder to interfere with? I’m now wondering if I’m right or wrong in that assumption?”
Why would you think that? The shop ATMs are obviously further outside the banks’ control. They’re indoors in arbitrary locations, not, for example, on a public street on the side of a bank.
Also, those machines apparently issue undefined charges… in the UK and US, it’s up to about a tenner on some petrol station ATMs. So I’d stick to the more official ones!
Because I reckon it would be harder for someone to mug me in a shop than out on the street.
And I reckon it would be harder for people to tamper with a machine inside a shop rather than out on the street.