Credit card fraud: ‘How could scammers use it before I did?’
I am no stranger to credit card fraud: in the past I have had my card cloned and had the details stolen from a hack on a retailer. But I thought a card I had never used would be safe from the threat of crime. I was wrong.
Even if you lock your credit card in a safe the moment it arrives, you can still fall victim to charges made by criminals. But how can criminals steal your card details if you’ve never even used them?
At 10pm on a quiet Thursday night in January, I got a text from my bank, Halifax, saying my credit card had been used at Domino’s Pizza for an order costing £30.67.
After 30 minutes on hold on an extremely busy Halifax line the customer service rep asked why I had called. “Fraud,” I said. “Domino’s?” he replied. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one paying for someone else’s takeaway.
In fact, the UK appears to have been in the grip of a takeway fraud boom. Recently a colleague’s card details were used to order £300 worth of takeways in the Andover area all over a single weekend.
This week, thousands of First Direct customers found their cards had been used to order chicken dinners in Nando’s. Mention to friends or family that your card was used by fraudsters to buy takeaways, and you will soon learn that you not alone.
In my case, Halifax froze my card to prevent further charges, and the next morning the card was cancelled and the charges marked to be refunded. Three days later a replacement card arrived on the doormat. Having activated it, I stashed it safely in a drawer. The next day I checked my statement to make sure the pizzas had been refunded – only to find to my horror seven fresh fraudulent charges totalling £465 – all on my new card. These weren’t at Domino’s but an unfamiliar sportswear company in the
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