A NEW twist in York's cash card skimming scam emerged today when a woman told how fraudsters had siphoned £350 out of her account.

Isabel Bamford said she had been told the money had been withdrawn from a cash point in Rugby, after her card details had apparently been skimmed at a cashpoint in York, to create a cloned card.

She contacted The Press after we reported last week how it was meant to be impossible nowadays for cloned cards to be used at cash points in this country because of the new chip and PIN technology.

Graham Mott, head of development at LINK, which connects all the banks' and building societies' cashpoint machines, said while card details could be skimmed at a cash point and people could be filmed keying in their PIN number, it was impossible to replicate the chip within the card.

He said fraudsters were sending the skimmed information abroad, where accomplices were able to create the cloned cards and use them at cash points which did not yet use chip and PIN.

Mike Laycock, The Press chief reporter, had more than £700 withdrawn from his account from cash points in Italy after his card details were skimmed in York.

Ms Bamford, who lives in the Nunnery Lane area, said she discovered she had been hit by fraudsters last Wednesday, after getting paid and going to a cash point to get a mini- statement to see how much was in her account.

She found there was £350 less than there should have been, and informed her bank.

She said she was then told the money had been withdrawn from Rugby after her card had been skimmed. Ms Bamford, who works for visitor reception at York Minster, said she had been told she would almost certainly get the money refunded.

Asked how a cloned card could still have been used in Britain, despite chip and PIN technology, Mr Mott said not all cards were "chip and PIN enabled".

He said all credit and debit cards now had the technology, but some cash point-only cards did not, and were still at risk of being cloned and then used at a cash point.

He said there could also occasionally be a fault in a cash point machine, allowing a card to be used without the requisite chip inside it, in which case liability would rest with the bank concerned.

He said some businesses also still asked customers to sign when using their card, which bypassed the chip and PIN system.