Who Are These Bastards? And How Do They Do It?

I've been a good citizen so far, I think.

I've worked since I was eighteen. I've paid my taxes and National Insurance for nigh on forty years and have never claimed a bean from the state. I've had a family and looked after them as best I could and my children look like they'll be pretty good citizens too. I give to charities and I volunteer for stuff. David Cameron probably loves me on some subliminal, Big Society level, and even though that love is not returned, I'm sure he's not losing any sleep over it.

Then I fill up my car with fuel, walk into the garage shop and attempt to pay for it. My bank debit card is refused. I don't understand. Along with my good citizenship, I am also debt-free: so "Lucky ME", huh?. Actually, its more "hard-working, careful, thrifty, saving, scared-shitless-of-borrowing" ME, rather than "lucky, spawny, screw-the-system or privileged-inherited-wealth-Osborne-Cameron-type-toff" ME. So how come I can't use my card? No answers. The computer just said "no".

Fortunately, I had another one. And it wasn't just any dull, ordinary debit card. Oh, no. It was a succulent, dark green, points-gaining Marks and Spencer credit card, that I'd been able, fortunately, to remember the PIN for even though I hadn't used it forever and had just got one to get a discount sometime. Just going off the subject a little...it really pisses me off when people refer, tautologically, to "PIN Numbers", but I suppose it would sound stupid to say PI Numbers. What the hoo...



As Olivier Said in Marathon Man "Is it Safe?"



So the garage attendant didn't have to take my wife as collateral until I found an alternate way of paying or call the police to have me arrested for attempted robbery. But I could feel the eyes of the people in the queue behind me burning into my very soul. Not only was I probably a "credit risk" but I was also (and more damnably) a "time-frittering risk" as evidenced by the tapping heels and general tutting about this wretched, impecunious twat at the counter taking up an extra sixty seconds of their busy lives while he desperately and ignominiously found a way to pay his dues. As I turned away from the counter, one woman glared at me so balefully that I believed she wanted to spit in my face. I recall wondering how she might have spent that sixty seconds I wasted for her. Running out onto the motorway and being mashed by an Eddie Stobart truck might just have taken that long...but she didn't use the time that wisely.

We drove away. One hundred miles away, then stopped again for a coffee; you know, one of those coffees that cost £3 and is selected from a menu that you don't really understand, where "tall" means small, "grande" means something else entirely and a "macchiato" is just too difficult to spell and never turns up like it does in Italy. Then I phoned the bank.

In contrast to the arseholes who'd made the assumption that I was a man without money, the people I spoke to at my bank were ruthlessly efficient and, at the same time, appropriately sympathetic. My card had been "compromised". Some scumbag somewhere had probably done something called "skimming" and had attempted transactions that were out of line with my usual purchases so the bank had stopped my card. Brilliant! Well done them. Only they hadn't told me. But that didn't matter in the end, because I'd been protected and I was really impressed by the fraud prevention systems they had.

But what I don't get is how it  happened. Who are these bastards? How do they do it?

There was a purchase on my card for some on-line music download for a measly £6; something I'd never done (and probably would never do - what else is YouTube for?). There was then an automated attempt by the bank to contact me on my mobile to question this purchase that failed because I was out of signal reach. The default is to cancel the card. Fair enough.



Clever Bastard?



The man at the Bank's Fraud Centre explained that "this happens a lot". A card is skimmed and then the fraudster attempts some low level transaction to see if it works before leaving it for a while and then blitzing the card with larger purchases and, effectively, using up all of my money. Well they can't do that now...until the next time? Am I now a target? Which debit card transaction enabled them to skim? Should I now just go to the cash machine and pay for everything in notes from now on? Can I never buy on line again for fear of being stuffed?

Don't get me wrong. Apart from not getting in touch, my bank has been very clever. But what I want to know is how the hell these criminals do this and which was the purchase that led to it. Was it some ingrate at an online store that fed details? Was it a clever scam by fraudsters mining some database somewhere? I'll never know, apparently.

I was not a real "victim of crime". Not like a rape victim or someone who has had their house burgled or just an innocent person who had the shit kicked out of them by some drunken or drug-addled mugger.

But, unlike those victims, I can't even guess how the "crime" was perpetrated. It's not in any way worse...it's just confusing.  And while most people want to bash banks these days, I'm glad that mine did what they did. These are ordinary banking operational things and people; not the merchant banking arseholes that fucked the global economy; the ones that should have their cards "compromised" so we can all get our money back. Fred Goodwin's Visa Debit Card number and PIN are...4358 4020 7345 2....OK, only joking. But wouldn't we like to know?

By the way...I bank with NatWest. It's only fair that I should mention that, I suppose...even though it ended up part of Goodwin's megalomaniac acquisition programme. It seems to have a very effective system to protect customers against low level fraud, nonetheless.