Treated like children over bank scandals

The latest bank error not in your favour today has thousands of bank details and pin codes in the hands of scammers.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0818/fraud.html

Bank of Ireland has confirmed that several thousands of its customers have been affected by a scam in which cardholders' details were stolen.


The bank said it will issue affected customers with new cards, after a criminal gang skimmed cards in a small number of retail outlets.


The individuals involved fitted devices to sales terminals while pretending to carry out maintenance work on behalf of banks.

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The story has changed a little since first published in that BoI are now saying they will issue new cards - they previously said they had blocked the affected cards to excessive use.

To be fair to the banks this time, they have not lost details, but they clearly had no procedures in place for stores to check their equipment and maintenance.

Which brings me to the points of this post:
1. Why are we not told the names and locations of the retail outlets to see if we could be affected?
2. Why is the initial response of the bank always to not tell anyone - do we know when this happened?
3. By the time the story is broken I would expect the banks to have already issued new cards, by express courier if necessary. This doesn't every happen.

The banks are treating us like mushrooms. The IPSO is running interference for them spamming the media with reassuring statements that disguise the substantive facts - more banking cock-ups kept quiet while the consumer frets that they may have their account emptied for them.

Surely it is the retailers fault for letting people have access to the machines without checking their credentials

In fairness to the banks, the original failure was not down to them and most banks do have procedures in place for point of sale installation etc.

IPSO have also said that the banks will refund any customers affected, albeit it will still be a major inconvenience for anyone out of pocket whilst it is being investigated

I agree that it would be good for the retailers concerned to be identified and for the timeline around this also to be made public but it is possible that there may be legal issues around that, in particuler if the banks decide to go after the retailers affected for reimbursement if they have to pay out losses

Moved from The Great Financial Debates. Read the posting guidelines.

I consider serial bad treatment by the banking establishment to be an issue worth debating. Not a popular view obviously

Did I have to list all the times the banks have lost/mislaid customer details? And not told anyone until they were found out? Or installed sub-standard security measures and told us they were unbreakable? Or cancelled people's card while they were on holiday without having the courtesy to phone them? (What bank doesn't have a mobile number for their customers? Who doesn't carry their mobile with them most places they go?).

If you want to debate feel free to. If you want to let off steam as in your first post it will be moved to here.

I e-mailed the IPSO this a.m. -

Hi,

It would be nice if details of this was put on your website - (from RTE website)

Bank details skimmed in shop scam

Monday, 18 August 2008 09:58
The Irish Payment Services Organisation has confirmed that the bank details of a number of customers have been skimmed in shops around the country.
The individuals involved fitted devices to sales terminals while pretending to carry out maintenance work on behalf of banks.
This enabled them to gather the details of cards that have been used at the shops.
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The scam, which was uncovered over the weekend, involved a small number of retail outlets, according to the IPSO.
It says an investigation is ongoing but says consumers should not be too concerned as anyone who has been affected by the fraud will be refunded by their bank.
Retailers are being advised to check the identity of anyone claiming to be carrying out work on behalf of their bank.
Those travelling abroad in the next week are advised to make sure restrictions have not been put on their bank cards.

Can you please tell me the name of the retail outlets as I might have been affected ?

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And I got an out of office reply

If I get a reply tomorrow I'll fill you in.

I also found the report to be very frustrating - why were the retailers not named ?
Worried customers will now suspect ALL retailers instead of those whose security procedures were flawed.

It would be just like reporting that "there is a spate of house break-ins in some town somewhere". Nonsense.

I also found the report to be very frustrating - why were the retailers not named ?

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I agree. The retailers should be named and shamed - it's their fault for letting unauthorised people access their card reading machines.

Considering that card reading machines are not bank or brand of card specific i.e. when you go into a shop, you dont have separate machines for BOI, AIB etc. or Visa, Mastercard etc. - all done on 1 machine - how come only BOI are admitting that this happened? Is it that the other banks havent yet discovered the scam or are covering up? I fail to see how a credit card scimming machine would be BOI specific?

csirl said:

I agree. The retailers should be named and shamed - it's their fault for letting unauthorised people access their card reading machines.

Considering that card reading machines are not bank or brand of card specific i.e. when you go into a shop, you dont have separate machines for BOI, AIB etc. or Visa, Mastercard etc. - all done on 1 machine - how come only BOI are admitting that this happened? Is it that the other banks havent yet discovered the scam or are covering up? I fail to see how a credit card scimming machine would be BOI specific?

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Different banks 'own' the supply to particular retailers. So BoI provide the machinery and the link to a particular retailer, say, Tesco. Tesco swipe an AIB card and send the authorisation request to BoI and BoI then route the transactions to AIB for authorisation. It works like the ATM system, although I don't know how the fees work (do BoI get to charge the retailer in this case or is it split between BoI and AIB?).

But you are right to say that it is not just BoI cards affected. [broken link removed] story in the examiner indicates all the main card issuers have been affected.

It does appear that BoI have learned somewhat from some of the lost laptop debacles that not owning up is a bad idea. The other banks appear to be keeping schtum and hoping the bad news will blow over.

http://www.examiner.ie/irishexamine...m=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=70122-qqqx=1.asp

[broken link removed] story in the examiner indicates all the main card issuers have been affected.

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But it still doesn't tell us which shops and their whereabouts. Perhaps if they mentioned this then we could eliminate ourselves immediately if we hadn't shopped there recently, if we had then at least we could contact our bank to see if we had been affected.

As far as I can see IPSO still have nothing on their website giving information, contact numbers for those affected etc etc, it's all very secret.

My Father had his card "done" over the weekend in Statoil Ballyroan using his Visa and his CC supplier is National Irish Bank. Amazing really given the timeframe from when he used it, to it being used in Budapest!!!!!! it was only a matter of hours.

Maybe we should post names of retailers that we know were affected - possibly form a list?????

At least one of the papers is taking it seriously, 2Pack found this in the Galway Independent!
[broken link removed]

The bankcard scam, which has seen Galway shoppers being hit for thousands of euros, could have been going on for the last three months, according to new reports.

Hundreds of Galway residents have already been hit by fraudsters who installed skimming devices in a number of Chip and Pin terminals in retail outlets all over the city and county.


Although the con only came to light at the weekend when a large number of shoppers reported sums of money missing from their accounts, the Irish Payment Services Organisation confirmed to the Galway Independent yesterday that the skimming process may have been going on since early June.
...
It has not yet been confirmed whether the skimming system in Galway is related to a similar nationwide scam, although the IPSO maintains that the two are not connected.

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Well, at least the good news is that IPSO can assure us that the two scams are not related. Phew. For a moment there I thought the stealing of chip&pin details in Galway were the same as the stealing of chip&pin details in the rest of the country. Or are IPSO saying there's more than one way to scam the chip&pin system?

I'm in Dublin and my MC was used fraudulently. Apart from telling me that it was being investigated as part of a criminal fraud case, they refused to tell me where it was used. As I use it on the internet (usually the same sites) this is frustrating as it means I could use my re-issued card on a potentially insecure site

yoganmahew said:

. It works like the ATM system, although I don't know how the fees work (do BoI get to charge the retailer in this case or is it split between BoI and AIB?).

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The retailers get charged a % of the transaction. Typically between 1 and 3% based on various details.

An internet based transaction is likely to attract higher charges than a chip and pin transaction.

The fee goes to the clearing house who usually supply the system. Basically the organisation who pays the retailer. The card issuer gets their money from the interest/credit card charges.

According to the Drogheda Leader (free local newspaper) this week, several skimmed payment terminals were found last weekend in stores in Drogheda and the North East. Gardaí said they intercepted 47 machines (though it doesn't make clear if that number refers to the "several" found in the North East only, or nationally).