Credit card compromised

[rgee]

I have a multi currency app which I use probably once a year for transferring currency and it comes with a Visa card for holidays etc which I have never used. While looking through the app yesterday there was a declined transaction on the card from a person for a 'Giving' in Australian dollars. Luckily my AUD balance had insufficient funds hence the decline and the card now cancelled. I googled the name on the transaction and it comes up with an entrepreneur in Australia (perhaps coincidence).

It is a bit worrying as I have never used the card.

[wileeeeeey]

Had the same with amex. A card I got and never used was a year later declined 4x for Amazon transactions (the one time security code prompts came to my email). The card was in my safe the entire time since receiving it.

Amex and Amazon were useless so I cancelled the card. Doubt you'll get to the bottom of it.

[Martylaa]

Just happened to me a few days ago, my CC I only use to book flights or travel to work then pay it off so its normally sat at £0. For some reason I went online to check it and noticed a payment for £22.54 and a currency transaction fee of £0.66???

Checked it and it was a Google Play payment for $25.00, I never use google play store as I have Apple, I went onto my Google account and there was nothing showing and no pending subscriptions. As I looked into the transaction it showed no business information and so I checked online and it turns up if using genuine google play it will generally say google app or something like that on your statement.

Immediately got onto the bank who looked into it and then decided to refund me, I asked them to cancel the card and got the new one yesterday, still sat here trying to work out how they got into my account. I personally think I'm up on all scam emails and texts and the cards never leave my sight.

[markrlondon]

still sat here trying to work out how they got into my account.

Almost certainly inside jobs. Simplest explanation for ones like these.

[PhilipK]

The card was in my safe the entire time since receiving it.

the cards never leave my sight.

As these will have been CNP (Card Not Present) transactions, the location of the physical card is irrelevant.

Likely to be either an inside job (as Mark says) or a lucky guess/brute force of card numbers. There are many web sites out there which will generate valid credit card numbers (the PAN is just a 16-digit number, which conforms to a whole load of validation rules), so the bad guys will use those and they sometimes strike lucky. They also rely on most people not checking their bank statements too closely (especially for relatively small transaction values).

[tixntox]

Any financial institution is only as secure as its most crooked employee!

[mjc1216]

Almost certainly inside jobs. Simplest explanation for ones like these.

A few years ago HSBC had a major problem with details being sold by employees working from India but you can probably understand if they are paid so little.

[MartynJC (UK)]

Tip: most online and even physical cards can be put into a “frozen” state via a suitable app. I try and do that with mine when I am not using them. I had the same as OP happen with a multi currency card was for a small amount in an unknown currency.

[rgee]

Tip: most online and even physical cards can be put into a “frozen” state via a suitable app. I try and do that with mine when I am not using them. I had the same as OP happen with a multi currency card was for a small amount in an unknown currency.

Good call. I froze mine immediately and raised an incident then they cancelled the card.

[oldoakknives]

As these will have been CNP (Card Not Present) transactions, the location of the physical card is irrelevant.

Likely to be either an inside job (as Mark says) or a lucky guess/brute force of card numbers. There are many web sites out there which will generate valid credit card numbers (the PAN is just a 16-digit number, which conforms to a whole load of validation rules), so the bad guys will use those and they sometimes strike lucky. They also rely on most people not checking their bank statements too closely (especially for relatively small transaction values).

My brother had someone taking money out of his account for several months and only realised recently. The amounts were always around the £15-20 mark and never a round figure, like £18.85 or £19.99 for example. Only realised when he was looking for a different transaction and studying his statements. The payments were listed as from a PayPoint ATM account from a shop he has never been in. Not sure how an ATM could pay out odd amounts like that and without a pin?

[joe narvey]

For those of you with a more modern bank, please note you can configure the card on the app, including disabling it for authentication where the card isn’t present and disabling it.

For the card I use for currency transactions the card ( Starling) is disabled unless I authenticate via my phone biometric, authenticate on the app and switch it on. For online purchases I can use a one-off card number that won’t work for transaction replays.