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infoxicated
19th March 2002, 06:22 PM
Last night I checked out my bank statement online. On Friday of last week a £399 transaction was made in payment to BT Cellnet/Internet.

My mobile is a vodafone one (0777 577 1656 - text me some lurve!), and although my internet service is provided by BT it costs £385 a month less than the amount withdrawn.

I called BT this morning, then BT internet - both of whom denied taking the money from my account. So I called my bank and asked them to investigate the transaction.

At just after four pm they called me back and explained that my details had been used to purchase a couple of mobile phones from a BT Cellnet shop in Leeds.

I have never been to Leeds and I was freaked at this point.

Turns out that something in my rubbish was used - like a bill or a statement that has accidentally been thrown out. The fraudster called the shop and arranged payment over the phone, then turned up with the bill on them to prove their identity when they collected the purchase.

Pick holes in this plot if you like, but that's the way my bank have pieced it together.

Aside from being quite a cool crime, it's something that could have gone undetected for almost a month if I did not have internet banking set up.

So, just to let you know, this is obviously a new-ish type of crime... get shredding your paper rubbish.

Lance
19th March 2002, 07:37 PM
thanks for the warning. right now i'm not very vulnerable to this sort of thing. i keep the account i use for direct withdrawal payments to near zero balance till the day before the withdrawal is made. but this method of theft is definitely a concern.

Wamdue
19th March 2002, 07:48 PM
known about this for quite sometime.. I imagene its very frustrating. As infox said, dont just throw away those bills, shred them and especially the vital parts of the bill.

vincoof
19th March 2002, 08:26 PM
I don't know about your bills, but there in France most of the banks do not write the entire card number on the bills.
There are just the 5 first or last digits, and all other digits are marked as '*' thus being impossible to identify the full number.

Lance
19th March 2002, 08:48 PM
btw, Rob, nice pun

infoxicated
19th March 2002, 08:51 PM
Just for you :smile:

xEik
19th March 2002, 10:03 PM
I knew of that. I always shred those although they don't have the whole number.
However, any time I bought somethimg with my credit card they asked to see my ID card as well to identify me. It's slightly different from your case cause I paid with the card. Not by giving some data. Any way, where I live, if someone buys something with a stolen credit card and the shop doesn't ask for the ID card then you can make the shop pay for the purchase since it was their fault.

_________________
PRACTICE LEADS TO PERFECTION !

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: xEik on 2002-03-19 23:05 ]</font>

Status
20th March 2002, 06:24 AM
Shame this wasn't widely known about a while back, as about six years ago someone was able to use my mum's Social Security number to run up tens of thousands in debt, then declaired bankrupcy in my mother's name. :sad:

satriani
20th March 2002, 12:27 PM
My wife has been burning all of her stuff for years..................she's paranoid and a pyromaniac! :smile:

Stalker
21st March 2002, 04:56 PM
My girlfriend is also burning... MY money!