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#1
29-11-2005, 23:05
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anyone else had this happen?
hi all,
been back in UK a fortnight now & suffering severe post-LOS blues  . I had a fabulous 4weeks in Patong and can't wait to return, suppose like lots of people am trying to come up with method of financing long-term stay - 6months LOS, 6months UK seems ideal. Did the usual & made the usual mistakes i.e. getting too attached to TG and many tears on parting Sorry I didn't get a chance to visit MTB this trip, love the BG's but doctors orders means limiting time spent in bars. Anyway, just got a call from Security Dept. at my credit card co. It appears I had my card details captured and the card cloned whilst in Thailand - been used a couple of times in Oz. No real worries as it was spotted quickly and a stop put on - no liability to me for fraudulant use I'm assured. However, I only used the card on one occasion so won't need Sherlock Holmes to track down where the dirty deed was done. Unfortunately it was in a place I used regularly and felt I could trust the guy concerned - established foreign-owned business dealing almost exclusively with farang and employing Thai nationals and foreign staff. Don't want to jump to conclusions or 2nd guess any inquiry but feel like giving the guy the benefit of the doubt at this point. Anyone else find themselves in a similar situation recently? seems to be a rash of these cases emanating from the region according to my source at CC co. Do any of the more technically gifted BM's know of the latest wheeze these people are using to do this? i.e. could it be done without this guys knowledge/collusion. guess I'm trying to find a way to convince myself that my judgement wasn't entirely off - the card fraud is little more than an inconvenience but being ripped off by a legit business leaves a sour taste in my mouth, especially as I was going to leave a glowing testimonial on their website. any thoughts on the subject appreciated 
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#2
29-11-2005, 23:23
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Sorry to hear that what was otherwise a good trip was tarnished by some rip off merchant. As you say, best wait for CC company report before pointing the finger at anyone. But,you will know where and when you used your card,so that should shorten the odds on who "scammed" it.
I hardly ever use my credit card in LOS, occasionally at ATM for cash , and am careful to return it straight to hotel security box. This type of fraud is common everywhere, only way to (try) and prevent it is to take the same precautions as you would in the UK. Don't let them take the card out of your sight, if need be, go with them to the till. Make sure that if there is a "carbon copy" ,it is returned to you. Guess this is no help , now that the deed has been done , but may be a useful lesson for anyone else using a Credit Card in Thailand.
__________________
Member of Phuket Hash House Harriers
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#3
29-11-2005, 23:36
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Personally I haven't had this happen to me but as I work in the area of security and fraud prevention I know quite alot about this topic.
Asia is one of the regions in the world where credit card fraud is extremely high. Thailand is not notoriusly high but still I see a lot of credit card fraud originating out of Thailand. My experiences is that it is usually foreigners living in LOS doing the fraud but naturally Thai people are involved as well. One of my "clients" lost 250.000 GBP in just around 3 weeks on credit card fraud originating from Thailand. (actually from Patong Beach  )First of all - did the guy take the card out of your sight? It is extremely easy to clone credit cards these days. The machines you use for the deed can be bought finished with all software on the internet, but there are also blueprints available so you can build your own machine. It takes around 2 seconds to clone a card and the good machines can keep several hundred cards in the memory before the data is loaded onto a laptop. After that is is extremely easy to make a clone of the card. However, you cant use the cloned cards in ATM machines because you would need the PIN code. The PIN code is actually stored on the card, but it is protected with a heavy algorithm so it is nearly impossible to break it. A US team of computer scientists did actually break the DES algorithm used, but it took them (and a bunch of supercomputers) several moths to do that. If you are 100% sure that you only used the card in 1 place then it is pretty sure that the copy of your card was made there. However, whether the guy you know are involved or not is hard to say. It depends on the type of transaction - did he hand your card to some other guy to take care of the payment for example? If so it could have been done without his knowledge. Actually it could have been done right next to you without your knowledge. I once saw a ingenious machine that they used on restaurants for cloning cards. The waiter simply had a little cloning machine (very small) strapped around his right leg. When he received the card from the customer he swiped it across the magnetic reader under his trousers. To the customer it looked like he was cleaning dirt and grease of the magnectic strip before he ran it through the normal restaurant credit card machine but in fact he made a copy of the card right there on the spot. Amazing what you can do these days. Regardless I would not use my card in that place again if I was you. Basically you should never leave your card out of sight, but that is very difficult when you for instance pay at restaurants with it etc. When I was in China some years ago my bank called me up after I returned and told me they were sending me a fresh set of all my cards since China was considered a high-risk country for credit card fraud. Nothing dodgy had happened but they just did it for prevention issues. A funny story from Denmark.. Around 1 year ago a guy set up a cardboard box on the main shopping street in Copenhagen. He only sold cigarettes (10 packs) but he sold them for 5 Danish kroner (1/3 of the normal price). The only catch was that you had to pay with your credit card. Now any reasonably intelligent person would think it was strange, but nevertheless he managed to clone over 200 cards in a couple of hours. Underneath the cardboard box he had his laptop collecting all the card information. Now the most clever part was that he actually made people punch in their PIN code on the "terminal" that they ran their card through. That way he had all the information he needed to make a copy of the card and go to any ATM and start withdrawing money. Unfortunately the guy was not clever enough to use different ATM's so the bank quickly spotted that something was wrong and called the police. 5 minutes later he was arrested, still carrying around the laptop with all the information on.. lol 
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#4
29-11-2005, 23:49
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i had it happen to me my 1st time in LOS.
i got back to the states on a saturday, and my bank called me on monday. they copied my atm card and took 10,500usd out of my account. it was cloned in thailand but taken out in tailan, estonia. i got it all back but because it was such an amount, i had to go to the police station and file a report, and fax numerous documents. pain in the butt!
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#5
29-11-2005, 23:54
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Would these new cards with CHIPs on them stop this kind of credit card fraud ?? I understand you can copy the data on a magnetic stripe but I'm led to believe that it's not possible to do the same with the CHIP which means I now only ever use my credit card abroad when I see a PIN + CHIP machine where I put the card in and take out myself, i.e. the shop assistant doesn't ever have to touch my card.
__________________
Only a woman can break his spell. Pure in heart who will offer herself
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#6
30-11-2005, 00:41
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The chip does stop some fraud but it only applies to ATM machines and any shops where they have a dedicated chip reading credit card machine. That is unfortunately not very widespread yet because the cost of these machines are pretty high for the merchants. Also the chip system is still flawed and causes many problems outside ATM's. The chip wont stop cloning or skimming fraud though. All you need is basically the card number and the CVC (3 security digits on the back of the card) and then you can shop online with the information. Also if I was to do some credit card fraud I would copy the information from one Visa card over to my own Visa card and basically overwrite my own. Then i could just pay for hotels etc. with my own card, with my name on it, but the card number (and therefore account) would not be mine and I would be getting free stays. The only way to see this is if the person behind the counter actually compares the credit card number on my card with the credit card number printed on the receipt - Not many people do that. I my self have one of these cloning machines that I use for my job. After I received it (bought it for 199 Euro and received it two days after) I copied my Visa information to an old library card I had and went to a supermarket where I knew the manager. I did my shopping and when I was about to pay I asked him if I could pay with my library card. Naturally he just laghed because he knew it wasnt possible, but imagine the expression on his face when I swiped the card, entered my PIN and the transaction went through Since it was an identical copy of my own Visa card the amount would of course be withdrawn from my own account but the look on his face was just priceless lol. The credit card companies have many tricks up their sleeves for fighting fraud, but nothing is 100% secure. Verified by Visa is one of the anti fraud messures but not many online shops participate in that yet. And you can also be sure that the fraudsters will find a way to copy and decode the information stored on the chip. The chip operates on the same principles as the chip cards used in satelite receivers and people have been breaking those for ages now. The chip is better than nothing though - one big mistake the credit card companies made in Denmark when they introduced it was to remove the mandatory picture on the card instead. They felt that they didnt need that anymore but they are soo wrong. Since that the credit card fraud in the Danish nighlife has incresed by 300%. Basically people go to the bar and buy bottles of booze, pay with their credit card and on the monday they call the bank and reject the charges. Because there is no picture on the card the bartenders have no way of making a positive ID on the card holder. Do you guys still have pictures on your chip cards?
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#7
30-11-2005, 00:48
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As far as I am aware , we have never had pictures on credit cards in the UK.
__________________
Member of Phuket Hash House Harriers
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#8
30-11-2005, 00:51
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Interesting.. I guess that is why CC fraud is very popular in the UK then ;o)
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#9
30-11-2005, 01:07
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Quote:
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#10
30-11-2005, 01:34
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thanx for the input guys,
never had CC with photo ID, sounds like good idea and extra level of security. Mine was chip&pin but didn't use PIN just signed for this. I observed same precautions as I would at home so felt reasonably comfortable. Don't want to go into too much detail and risk compromising someone who may yet prove to be innocent but used card to pay for a course at a diving school. The card was never out of my sight and i didn't see any dodgy activity. The person concerned was the owner of the school and I just can't see anyone being daft enough to endanger their livelihood and their reputation, destroy years of hard work and risk Thai criminal justice system for what amounts to peanuts with 100% chance of getting busted. Been following the board for a while now and just wanted to say big thanks to all for a great site. 
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#11
30-11-2005, 02:18
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the withdrawals were done electronically. and exceeded my daily limit also, they took 6000 one day and 4000 the next
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#12
30-11-2005, 02:53
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A bit of a coincidence,but I lost my wallet last fri evening and didn't find out until Sat afternoon
I immediately rank the banks and c/card companies and had the cards blocked. Luckily for me,nobody had used them for some online Xmas shopping as its easy to register another card on Paypal without the owner having any idea. Got my new chip&pin Bank card today.
__________________
I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my Granddad Not screaming in fear like his passengers
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#13
30-11-2005, 03:43
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Many years ago when I returned from one of my travels to Bangkok, there was a message from Eurocard Denmark that they could see my card had been used in Thailand and as security they automaticly would change the card, just to be sure no one would use the card number out there if it was copied.
I have used my Eurocard many times in Thailand, but only to get money in banks, but I have never had any problems about someone copying my card. I now have a Siam Commercial Bank account with ATM card, I then transfer money out to that, and then use ATM card to get money for life out there. Here in Denmark we have a common card for all banks, called Dancard. Until they invented the chip on this card, all Dancard was made with photo, of some strange reason they made these new chip cards without photo. They say it's more secure with chip, yep, if you check it using the chip, but here in Denmark they have a lot of IT problems with that, taking too much time in shops, se most shops check cards the old way. The old Cancard could also be used in post office when you had to pickup some package delivered for you, now I need to identify myself at the post office here in Denmark using my passport else they don't trust I'm the right person. I don't understand why there is no photo on both Mastercard, Eurocard, Dancard and all the others, it's generally more secure when you can check if it's the right person in front of you. On a tour to Stockholm in July this year I got my Eurocard stolen. When I returned to Denmark there was a message from Swedish police that they had confiscated my Eurocard. Seams some people took my card, and used it at some servicestations without the PIN code. They could use it about 4 times, before I asume they had to use the PIN and bang, the police gets them. As I phoned Eurocard Denmark very fast, I got all the lost money back later, and a new Eurocard also.
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#14
30-11-2005, 05:40
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I have the perfect solution for your problems ST66 , when I arrive in Patong just give me all your cards and I'll spend all your money. Cuts out the middleman.
 The fee for the above financial advice is a beer in Faultys. 
__________________
Member of Phuket Hash House Harriers
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#15
30-11-2005, 06:15
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I want to use my bank card just the once here in Baghdad to say I have used it here! I've found loads of 'holes in the walls' but no ATM's yet!
__________________
The idea is to die young.........as late as possible.
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#16
01-12-2005, 04:55
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Another thing: If you have a Hotel key with a card attatched to it (the thing you have to stick in a slot on the wall to get the air-con working) Dont mix your card with it or put it in the same pocket together. Some of them are magnetic and will f*ck up your cards.
I had both mine deleted on my last trip 
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#18
01-12-2005, 14:02
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Yes, i am pretty sure it was the hotel key. I have heard of several people that had trouble with this now. I just didnt think of it until Nicke told me.
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#19
01-12-2005, 14:23
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Lol, I know because I did same mistake back in 1999. I had two cards and before the end of my holiday none of my cards worked.
I remember I went to numerous exchange boots and banks before Bangkok Bank were able to help me to withdraw money without working magnetic strip. Another note to the original topic, sometimes cards are cloned at ATMs, so be beware of strange devices put in front of the card slot, this kind of cloning happens all over the world I think. Quote:
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#20
01-12-2005, 14:50
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Yep this is one of the newest scams out there. I always check the ATM to see if it looks different than normally because the readers the fraudsters use are so small and compact now that they are nearly impossible to see. We just had a case here in Denmark where they put up a new "shell" infront of the ATM machine. It looked 100% like the normal ATM but featured a magnetice stripe reader and it stored the PIN code you entered on the keypad as well. The customers didnt notice because the ATM worked perfectly and paid out the money as usual. It was only afterwards when they saw all the transactions on their cards they found out.
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#21
01-12-2005, 16:12
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OK. So what is the best solution to this problem, particularly like me if you are going to stay a long time? If I have a non immigrant B visa, is it possible to open a bank account, and is this the most sensible solution?
Cheers Ron
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#22
01-12-2005, 16:45
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Experiment
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I saw an experiment where a couple of crazy American guys try to proove/disprove urban myths. They tried disabling the magnetic stipe on a debit (or credit card) but, no matter what they did, the card still worked. I wonder if it is a combination of the age of the card and magnetic influence? Steve
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#23
01-12-2005, 16:53
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I thought anyone could open a bank account?
Another solution is to go inside the bank to the counter and withdraw the cash manually. Just for the information, I have probably used every ATM in Patong several times and i never had any scams. On the other hand you never know..
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