Saturday, July 28, 2007

Beware of ATMs

Sunday night when we got home from the ranch, I got online to check my bank account. I noticed there were 2 amounts taken out for $304.20 each. I checked my wallet to see if I had my debit card and it was there. I had Bryon check for his card and he had it too. I called the bank and they couldn't tell where the money was used or which of our cards had been used, but they said it was an authorized transaction which means our pin# was used. Bryon and I thought an amount had been entered in wrong since a pin# was used so we decided to wait to cancel our cards until the transactions posted to see where the money was spent. Monday night I checked my account again and there was another $304.20 taken out. I called the bank and canceled our cards. Tuesday morning the transactions posted and the money had been taked out at an atm in Italy. Which means someone had to make a copy of my husbands card and steal his pin#. I guess there is a device that criminals put into atm machine and it copies all your info and remembers the pin#. Wells Fargo was very nice & all of our $912.60 plus $15 ATM fees were put back into our account that night. Since the criminals had made new cards and stole our pin it is concidered fraud and there will be a criminal investigation. Bryon's cousin who uses the same ATM also had money stolen the same weekend & it was taken out in Italy too. Yikes!

7 comments:

steph said...

Hmmm...until you said that the money was taken out of an ATM in Italy I was a little suspicious because Joey just bought me some new earrings and the total came to $912.50.

It figures this would be all Bryon's fault...just kidding!!

Becky said...

That sucks, but at least your bank took care of it... you have a lot more liability with debit cards than credit cards. A peice of good advice is to take an old hotel key, or anything else with a magnetic strip, (that is not for banking)and swipe it after you're all done at the atm. Or don't use atms! But I'm pretty sure they can use card readers anywhere, so just be careful!

Tamie said...

it is so sad that we can't even live, without worrying if someone is going to steal something from us. what a world! i'm so glad that things worked out though. good job on being on top of watching your bank statement. a word to the wise for the rest of us: don't ignore your bank account!!! :)

Erica said...

Oh I can't even imagine that happening. that is one of my worst nightmares. I am gald your bank put all your money back into your account. It just seems we are safe nowhere these days.

Katie said...

Wow! I have seen a show on tv about how criminals do that. That really sucks, but I'm glad you got it all taken care of! CRAZY!

Ami Bethea said...

I haven't told Sean about this because he would be outraged and probably forbid me from using ATM's! I already can't use debit, my life would be over without the ATM. I'm glad everything turned out okay! Let's play before I go back to school, okay?

Unknown said...

you are starting to slack... And you call yourself a blogger????