If you are like millions of people, you use a debit card to make your purchases in grocery stores, restaurants, fast food restaurant and a host of other establishments including the Internet.
Recently a debit card fraud took place and it was only caught because of careful checking of online transactions. Four purchases were made in a local area for Chinese food and pizza. They looked like normal purchases and perhaps would have gone unnoticed until much more damage was done. However, no one had visited these particular restaurants in months.
So how did this happen?
It took a visit to one of the restaurant to shed some light on the problem. The manager examined his receipts and was able to find all three transactions. This then triggered the manager’s memory of the customer who had telephoned in an order and read the debit card number as well as the expiration date. The thief then came in to pick up the order and all he did was sign the receipt. No one asked him for a card and no one cared that the signature was basically not readable.
Fortunately, because the thief had done this three times, the manager could describe the individual. He also had access to photographs of the person that were on his security camera. So there was no question that this was a fraudulent transaction.
Apparently someone who worked at a fast food restaurant had written down the card number and then used it. It was amazingly uncomplicated.
To protect yourself from this kind of debit card fraud, you need to make sure that when you are out and you hand someone your debit card that you can see what they do with it. It should not go out of your sight because writing those numbers down doesn’t take much effort. It just takes a minute. Make it a habit to either pay cash at the drive through fast food restaurants or make sure that you can see your card at all times.
In this fraud case, the debit card owner was checking their banking activity daily so the purchases were caught early enough not to do significant damage, but the consequences were that the card had to be cancelled and reissued with a different number. That can be a major inconvenience. Then there had to be a report filed with the bank that required disputing the charges and signing paperwork to that effect. The bank handled the rest of the dispute and reimbursed the money to the card owner.
So how common is this?
A bank teller recently said that there were at least two to three people a day that come in to dispute purchases that were not made by them. These purchases mostly involved unexplained Internet purchases and not debit card fraud. Debit card fraud is not as common, but it still happens and that should alarm anyone who uses debit cards on a regular basis. To protect yourself from this happening to you, take care when using your card and don’t let it out of your sight for any reason.
Use a debit wallet register
Tracking your expenses with a debit wallet register will help you quickly identify any unauthorized charges to your bank account. Protect yourself by keeping good records.
