Stealing Money from Bank Cards: New Methods

24.03.2016

Today’s post must be used for bank cards’ protection and should help you avoid unauthorized access to your funds.
When plastic cards appeared in the USA (in the middle of last century) they marked the beginning of a new epoch of financial relations. The wave of new technologies reached Russian boundaries only in the beginning of a new millennium. The novelty had widespread distribution after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is known that along with technologies new methods of fraud develop as well. Basic methods have been developed during early times of plastic cards development; however, they are rather successfully used even today. There are several reasons:
- First of all, carelessness of card-holders, ignorance or disregard for safety rules.
- Insufficient efficiency of protection mechanisms. Despite their periodic improvement, frauds quickly update their proven methods.
 

Basic methods


Not many people know what a skimmer is. It is a specialized device placed in a card-vender of an ATM. It reads the information from magnetic tape and CVV code. Received data can easily be transferred to common plastic and accomplish unauthorized withdrawal from a victim’s account in any place around the globe. This method is especially widely used in places where people have access to each other cards, for example, at offices; this method is called as “friendly”.
Some crooks may simply oversee a card’s PIN while you enter it on ATM, then they steal the card and cash out funds before a card-holder will realize the loss. Here they used the following method: a photo-tape is installed into a card-vender, so the card cannot be retrieved from an ATM. A card-holder is distracted to make a phone call to his bank, so a thief takes a card and disappears.
Sometimes crooks succeed to place false ATMs or infect active ATM software with viruses.
Online frauds are getting more and more widespread. So-called farming is flourishing across the Internet: redirecting a client to a faked online-trade resource. Information leakage can be provoked by malware which enter PCs of careless users together with useful software.
A rarely efficient method is fishing – bulk mail out of spam. Inexperienced users bite crooks’ tricks and disclose bank card’s data.
Rather often theft of data is performed by dishonest personnel that operate payment terminals.
There is one more relatively new type of fraud. Crooks call to a number of a potential victim and inform that he is a lucky winner of a large prize, so they need to know a card data to transfer funds. This is one of the simplest but very efficient methods.
The latest achievement of frauds is a method of falsification of terminals. Counterfeit devices allow processing noncontact money transfers but at the same time they read plastic card data. Quite often small devices are used for stealing data. They are installed in crowded places, retail facilities. The essence of fraud is that these devices collect information over a small distance.
Nevertheless, this new method hasn’t received widespread use for several reasons:
- Limitedness of money transfers based on noncontact technology, value of transfers rarely exceeds 1,000 rubles.
- Continuous change of CVV code.
 
How to avoid problems?
A victim may keep hope that banks will write off stolen funds. This is a responsibility of banking institutions. But you have to take into account that users have not only rights but some responsibilities as well. For example:
- A victim must immediately inform the bank about unauthorized withdrawals of funds or a missing bank card. It is advisable to inform the bank within 24 hours after receiving notification about suspicious transaction. Application processing might continue up to two months.
- Given the refusal from the bank, a victim may apply to the court. Rather often banks cannot prove user’s involvement in theft and have to repair damages. The court usually takes into consideration that a victim represents a weak party on the economic plane.
- Users who do not use SMS-notifications about performed transactions are at great disadvantage. Unreasonable economy does not allow receiving information; this is not an excuse. Banks have every right to refuse in compensation of damage. SMS-notification is a chargeable service. That is why many users refuse it, asking colleagues whether they received their salaries into cards. The price of the service is rather low – around 30-50 rubles per month. Whereby the law does not specify how the bank must transfer information concerning transactions to clients. Some banks choose an intricate way: they offer printed “bank statements”, so a client has to visit the bank to get it.
 
Despite obvious advantages of plastic cards, you have to remember that they cannot ensure safety of your funds. Funds safety is responsibility of a card-holder.
- Do not economize on safety and security.
- It is better to join SMS-notifications service, price of which cannot be compared with the amount of your deposit.
- Do not forget, when you carry out exchange of currency at e-money exchangers, you have to make sure that it has a security certificate, SSL. Is it secure and reliable?


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