June 05, 2006
on-line resources for victims of ATM fraud
This is related to a very interesting article from the Register last year: How ATM fraud nearly brought down British banking, which detailed how prone the early ATM systems were to fraud.
The problems continue, with some banks sending out vulnerable PINs. The new chip-enabled cards feature other shortcomings.
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Last year, I wrote up (self-link) my experiences with debit fraud from what I think is organized crime in Spain. I was stunned at how completely clueless and helpless my bank acted with regard to the whole thing. To make a long story short, I had to close my bank account to end the debit drain. Nothing else worked, and I was getting hit multiple times a week, every week.
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Ah, a subject I can speak to. Gotta read the linkies, but I manage an ATM network, and was a credit card fraud specialist for quite some time. So I shall dive into said subject matter, then return to show my own ineptitude :) Russia and Indonesia=current fraud hotbeds. Beware!
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Having been the victim of numerous attacks while living in Indonesia, I am not surprised Lara. I was able to trace the initial source of my troubles to a bar/club in the JW Marriott that I visited (the one that got bombed, luckily a few months before that incident). I assume that one of the employees made an imprint of my card and sold the info. Whatever the case, within weeks it was slowly being drained by authorizations in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. $2 here, $10 there, no biggies, but an average of 5 transactions a day for a few weeks did enough damage to make me wince (I didn't have internet access, so I didn't realize it was going on until it was too late).
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Six minutes for Lara.
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Ralph, I had a horrible weekend. Our ATM server crashed more than it was up, and I've barely slept since Thursday. That was the most appropriately funny thing I could have seen this weekend. Thank you! (P.S. I have my own test ATM that looks much like this guy. Maybe I should take him on the road.)