Month: November 2006

I am a victim of debit card fraud. Which is interesting.
Most of you know me. I live on the internet, so as you can imagine much of my banking and shopping is done online. You’ll also know that I am very careful and a little knowledgeable, so I shop at reputable stores and ensure that they use secure information transfer methods. Almost all of this is done from my Mac, because I consider it safer than my PCs, and less likely to be infected by trojans, keystroke loggers, viruses or other malware. Yet still my debit card details have been stolen and used somewhere in Europe for two small (about £30) transactions. Of course they need not have been stolen from me directly, or even via a computer. The methods of obtaining card information are diverse (some are mentioned in thisCardWatch overview but many more exist).
As a customer of the big banks I am well looked after. I spoke to LloydsTSB via PhoneBank, after noticing the transactions on my statement via internet banking. They politely, expediently and neatly arranged for the card to be cancelled, replaced, and the standard legal humdrum to be sent to me for signature and return. They will bear the brunt of this fraud. I am merely mildly inconvenienced, as I have a secondary credit card that I can use for transactions, and I can move cash around between accounts online for withdrawal in the real world.
I will read up further, but I don’t yet see how I could make myself more secure in the future.