Bank card scam is an Italian job

IT was only when the building society lady asked me if I'd been on holiday to Italy recently that the penny dropped.

I told her I had been to Venice briefly last November, but not been near the country since then.

She then told me I appeared to be the latest victim of credit card skimmers and cloners, losing out to the tune of more than £700.

Someone had skimmed my debit card details, cloned a new card, and then visited cash points in places such as Torino and Rivoli to siphon hundreds and hundreds of Euros from my account.

I first realised something was wrong when I went to a cash point at Nationwide, in Parliament Street, York, on Tuesday afternoon and noticed my account balance was even worse than it should have been in the run-up to payday.

I obtained a mini- statement of my last dozen transactions and spotted two amounts of £169.89 had gone out in the space of three days.

I thought an unusually large direct debit must have been paid out twice by mistake and, on getting back to the office, I rang Nationwide to check this out. That was when I was asked if I had been on holiday to Italy.

The Nationwide checked back through my account, and it emerged five withdrawals had been made in five days in Italy, totalling about £700.

The payments included two sums of 250 Euros, withdrawn on April 21 and 23. Converted into sterling, each payment amounted to - you've guessed it - £169.89.

By now I was worried, wondering if I had lost the money for good.

But Nationwide quickly put my mind at rest. All the payments would be fully reimbursed, and I would not be charged for breaching my limit.

The card was also promptly stopped, and I was asked to visit the branch in Parliament Street to sign some forms.

There, my card was destroyed, and I was told I would receive another one within a few days.

Problem over - for me, for now.

But, by a bizarre coincidence, only hours before or hours after my visit to the Nationwide, someone was attaching skimming equipment to the cash point outside.

The equipment, including pin-hole camera, was spotted by a customer on Wednesday afternoon and police were called.

Check if you have fallen victim'

ANYONE who has used a cash card at any ATM in the York area in the past few weeks was urged today to check they had not fallen victim to a card cloning scam.

Nationwide Building Society said its customers were not the only people at risk from fraudsters who skim people's card details and then plunder their accounts.

Police and building society officials have been investigating since equipment, including a "pinhole camera", was found attached to the cashpoint outside Nationwide's Parliament Street branch on Wednesday.

But a society spokeswoman said other non-Nationwide customers used the cashpoint. She said it was likely similar equipment had been attached to other ATMs in the York area.

Chief reporter Mike Laycock is thought to have had his card skimmed at another machine in York in recent weeks.

Top tips for beating the cashpoint conmen:

* Where possible, use ATMs with which you are most familiar, or choose well-lit, well-placed ATMs where you feel comfortable* Scan the whole area before approaching ATM, and avoid using it if there are any suspicious-looking individuals around* Never reveal your PIN to anyone, including the police and "helpful" strangers* Check for anything unusual or suspicious about the ATM indicating possible tampering. If there appears to be any attachments to the card slot or key pad, do not use it* Avoid ATMs with messages fixed to them indicating there are changes to screen directions* Be cautious if strangers offer help at an ATM, even if your card is stuck. Do not allow anyone to distract you* Check others keep their distance from you, and keep on the look-out for people watching you enter your PIN* Stand close to the ATM and shield the keypad with your hand when keying in your PIN* Never force your card into the slot. If you feel the ATM is not working normally, press the cancel key, withdraw your card and go to another ATM. If your card gets jammed or lost, report it immediately to the bank and/or police* Keep your transaction record so you can compare receipts with your monthly statement. Regularly check your balance and statements, and report any discrepancies to your bank immediately.

Skimming the surface of major fraud operation

How do the scamsters skim your cash card information, why do they go to Italy to extract your money - and how can cardholders prevent it happening to them? Mike Laycock reports

CRIME is an international phenomenon nowadays - and nowhere more so than with credit card skimming.

Most of the skimming at cash points in Britain is carried out by Eastern European gangs, and most of the cash is extracted at cash points abroad, says Graham Mott, head of development at LINK, which provides the connection between all the different banks and building societies' cash point machines.

He said equipment was often placed around the card slot to skim off information about the card, while a miniature camera - no bigger than a Lego brick - was used to captured the PIN number tapped in by customers. A fresh card, containing all the details, was then cloned.

However, because of the chip and pin system now in place in Britain, it was impossible for the fraudsters to use the cloned card at an ATM in this country: they could not recreate the chip inside the card and it wouldn't work.

Instead, they often passed the information on to accomplices abroad, in countries where chip and pin had not yet been introduced - such as Italy - where the cloned card could still be used at an ATM.

Mr Mott stressed that provided people had behaved responsibly with their card - and had not, for example, passed their PIN on to strangers - they would be entitled to get all their money back.

He said the simplest and easiest step to prevent your card being cloned was to prevent anyone - either a hidden camera or someone lurking behind you - watching you type in your PIN. He said: "All you need to do is shield the keypad with your hand."