Talked to BoA today; apparently someone withdrew over $500 from an ATM using my account. The scary thing is that I had my ATM card with me all day, so it’s not like someone stole my card and used it. Also, I don’t have a duplicate card floating around either. How would someone be able to withdrawl cash from my account without my ATM card? Thanks
It’s totally possible to fabricate a card if you know the correct information. Getting the information could be done in lots of clever scammer ways – everything from intercepting your mail to peering over your shoulder while you use the ATM.
Very sophisticated approaches involve actually putting card scanners in the ATM machines themselves and mounting cameras to acquire your PIN number.My friend had that happen, but it was someone who walked into a branch and miswrote their checking acct #. The only thing I can think of is computer error on the ATM’s part.
Or maybe a transaction (or ten) didn’t post until today, thus overdrawing you?
There was a scam several years ago when people set up fake ATM machines (in a mall I think it was). These worked like real ATM machines and did give money; however, they also recorded the account numbers and PINs used to withdraw money. The fake machine was then removed, and the recorded account and PIN numbers were used to make withdrawals. So one question would be hav eyou used a third party ATM machine – one not at your bank (or in another bank which would almost certainly be legit).
OldGuy, I think you’re mixing up two things.
There was one scam (in Scandinavia IIRC) where they put up an entire fake ATM, but it did not give money and was purely used to skim card details. The bank only woke up to it when customers kept complaining that the ATM in location so-and-so always rejected their cards, and someone realised the bank didn’t have an ATM there.
The second is much more widespread and involves installing a skimmer in series with the actual card slot on a real ATM. The skimmer may record card details or transmit them somewhere. ATMs where this was easy to do have been modified, at least around here. The customer would still be able to get money from the machine, although often only after having to put the card in twice.
As I recall, they did not actually give out any money. As soon as they had your card number and PIN the machine would give an error message like, “Network is down, please try later.” This would make a lot more sense from the thief’s point of view.
The mall scam was at Buckland Hills Mall in Connecticut about twelve years ago.
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- I remember that! It was 80’s or 90’s, years ago, at an outdoor shopping mall in California. Some company contracted to put in ATM machines in an outdoor mall and the machines worked for two or three months, they gave money and everything, then one morning all the machines were gone and nobody could locate anyone who worked for the company, the office was closed/empty. And then all the people who had used cards in any of those machines started having withdrawals on their accounts. The newspapers in St Louis all reported the story, I remember reading it in both local papers. Truly a mind-boggling scam.
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- I remember that! It was 80’s or 90’s, years ago, at an outdoor shopping mall in California. Some company contracted to put in ATM machines in an outdoor mall and the machines worked for two or three months, they gave money and everything, then one morning all the machines were gone and nobody could locate anyone who worked for the company, the office was closed/empty. And then all the people who had used cards in any of those machines started having withdrawals on their accounts. The newspapers in St Louis all reported the story, I remember reading it in both local papers. Truly a mind-boggling scam.
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A Malaysian gang operating in Sydney a couple of years ago withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars. They installed skimmers and pinhole cameras in legitimate ATMs to get card and PIN details. The police arrested some of the gang but I am not sure that they caught them all.
Here is an article about it.
Are you able to offer any details as to how they did this? Did the bank say they used an ATM? Was it the bank’s ATM? A different bank? A private ATM? Or was your ATM account access used differently?
As pointed out by others in this thread, there are several ways your account details may have been stolen via an ATM you may have used. Or not.
Also are you sure it was via ATM? Or did they say by “electronic transaction”? Those are two different things. “Electronic Transaction” can be alot of things - like online payments.
Not calling you an idiot, just trying to offer more ideas 
How on earth did they install these things without being detected?
A few months ago while testing a TV card, I managed to record a two minute segment of some random show… Since this is from a TV show, take it with a grain or two of salt.
This fellow walked up to the ATM and was about to put his card in when he noticed a small dent in the corner of the faceplate around the card slot. He took out a big hunting knife and put it in the crack between the faceplate and the machine – the faceplate simply came off in his hand.
it was a piece of metal, 1/4" thick, 4" wide x 2 " high, with a slot, labeled “Diebold” just like the real machine’s slot. It had been held in place with a magnet. As people inserted their cards, the card would pass through the false faceplate and into the real machine slot.
Presumably, this gadget held a magnetic head and a small transmitter.
He then looked at a plastic envelope holder attached to the inside right wall of the machine – it was full of deposit envelopes. When he pulled out the evelopes, he found a pinhole camera in the bottom of the holder, aimed directly at the keypad, through a tiny hole in the plastic envelope holder.
The fellow turned around, saw a car suddenly speed away, then the car was broadsided by another vehicle. Our hero ran over to the now-smashed car and saw a dazed fat man at the wheel, with a zillion blank ATM cards scattered about, and a laptop showing the video being broadcast from the envelope holder that was still in the fellow’s hand.
Kind of cool. Does anyone know what this film/program was?
picture of skimmer device with internal camera. Impressive, eh?
I really think this might be what happened to you, considering they took out $500, quite often the maximum daily amount allowed on ATM cards.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet:
The scanners that were placed on the atm mentioned in the story above can also be used by employees at places like gas stations and convenience stores. After they swipe your card through the business’s reader, they swipe it through their own, stealing the data off the strip, which they use to make a duplicate card later.
But without a PIN, they wouldn’t get very far. Situations like the one you mention are fradulant charges showing up on the card, not ATM withdrawls.
This has happened to me. In Dec of 2003, several withdrawls were made from my bank account via ATM card. The card was with me during the entire time. The withdrawls were from ATMS in Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh while I was in Columbus, OH that entire weekend. They were ATM withdrawls with a PIN used and I was also assesed the out of network ATM fee.
It took a long, hard battle with my bank to get the money back to my account. The bank never explained what happened.
More photos and descriptions of the ATM scam devices. Clearly, there’s organized crime behind this.
Cool! That’s precisely the type of device that was featured in the program I saw – the leaflet holder with pinhole camera looked exactly like the one in the photo. Scary stuff.
You caught a bit of C.S.I. (Vegas), Season 4, Episode 20, entitled Dead Ringer