In a stunning display of not-actually-irony

[andrewducker]

I went to check my bank account at lunch and discovered that on Saturday two lots of £15 had been used to buy pre-pay mobile credit from O2.

As I have no O2 phone (or other related device), this was somewhat surprising.

I spent 10 minutes on the phone to the bank, sorting it out. They're passing details onto the fraud team, and have cancelled my card (new one with me in the next five days). And only momentarily tried to sell me a loan.

No idea how it happened - currently assuming that someone got my card details from an insecure website. Not hugely worried about it either, just glad that I checked the recent items on my statement (online banking FTW).

Comments

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Bought anything at Lush recently?

[andrewducker]

Nope. In fact, checking my card history, the last thing I bought on that card that wasn't a direct debit, or via Amazon Marketplace/Paypal was on the 20th of December. Mysterious.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I imagine a clever fraudster would have collected your details and waited a certain amount of time before using them?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

And the nature of the payments, small sums to a mobile phone company, exactly the sort of thing they might reasonably expect somebody not to notice on their statements.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Yep, and apparently it's common for thieves to check the validity of the card by charging a small amount before going for the plasma screen or whatever. Someone I knew had $25 donated to a charity who gave prosthetic limbs to ex-soldiers, or something along those lines, as a test, and then she lt them keep the donation because claiming it back would just have been cruel.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Lush, online store only, any time between October 1 and last week is apparently the main culprit at the moment.

[broin.livejournal.com]

Well done! I had my debit card skimmed recently for €500 or so. Once I managed to convince the first line phone monkeys there was a problem (surprisingly difficult to prove you didn't visit Dubai recently) by the miracle of WHOIS, the fraud team were very on the ball.

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

Barclaycard were pretty good after someone managed to spend £1500 gambling online with mine and £650 on alloy wheels. The fact that the alloy wheels transaction went through despite having a different name, address and phone number to me, not to mention me not being a car owner meant they refunded the money (and the over limit charges) fairly easily. The only irritation was having to get a replacement card and losing £2k of credit limit while they sorted it out.

[recycled-sales.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough when I had fraudulent charges on my card it was to o2 - although in that instance it seemed like they mucked up a direct debit rather than someone skimming my card.