Venting - Bank Account Hacked

[Deskdiary]

Some utter piece of chav scum has hacked my account or card and managed to place 80 x £29 bets on skybet.com before my bank noticed some "unusual" activity and contacted me.

There were also 4 payments to Asda totalling £140.

So, some chavs have had a high old time placing bets and with George at Asda have clothed their chav kids in shool clothes.

My questions...

1. Am I wrong in hoping these scum die a very slow and painful death?
2. Does it really take 80 transactions of the same amount to make a bank think "um, that's unusual, this customer has never placed a bet with skybet.com and yet he's now placed 80".
3. So much for the ads warning about betting if Sky will happily accept £2,320 over 80 separate bets from the same account/card and not think "that can't be right".
4. If the chav scum wins using my money, do I get the winnings?

I'll get the money back....but I'm bloody fuming.

By the way - Q1 above is rhetorical - I know I'm probably wrong, but I really do hope the chav scum dies in the most unimaginable pain possible. And their fat chav girlfriend as well.

[Old_Geezer]

1. Probably, but it's understandable.
2. Seems so.
3. Fair enough. Not really a question though.
4. Probably not. They'd claim it wasn't legitimately put on by the owner of the money.

Good luck getting it sorted.

[Deskdiary]

As soon as I pressed Enter I though, crap, No 3 wasn't a question.

Even though the money is safe, I'm bloody fuming that scum think it's perfectly OK to steal.

But more than anything, I'm angry as *** that they WILL get away with this, and I am totally impotent in being able to do anything.

[Tilly2]

Have you any idea how it happened?

[Togo]

Have you any idea how they stawt(read in the mirror) managed to get you details Deskdiary? Must admit to being very wary of the sky websites after I had trouble with my account there for Fantasy Football and the ITV7 at the beginning of the year. Someone had tried to log in as me and it took me 10 days to get it open again. I would certainly not trust the site with my financial details. If it helps my wishes are the same as yours for the future prospects of the thieving gits.

[Togo]

//and I am totally impotent in being able to do anything.//

Guess what the data protection laws are on their side not yours. If they are caught(big if) you just try to get their details. No Chance.

[Buenchico]

Betting companies don't usually worry about bets placed using debit/credit cards, or directly from bank accounts,simply because any winnings are credited to the relevant accounts. i.e. there shouldn't be any way of the thief/fraudster getting hold of the winnings.

There was one well-reported case where a guy stole a woman's debit card and used it to place a long-odds bet with a High Street bookie. When he went to claim 'his' winnings (nearly three hundred pounds) he was told that the money had been credited to 'his' bank account. When he then kicked up a fuss and tried to demand cash, the police were called and he got nicked. (The betting company allowed the woman to retain the winnings from the bet).

So I can't see how the fraudster hoped to gain from placing bets with your money.

Professional gamblers often place bets totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds in a single day, so 80 smallish bets aren't necessarily going to start alarm bells ringing with a bookmaker.

To be a bit pedantic here, I suspect that, rather than your bank account being directly hacked, your debit card has been cloned. That would explain why the bets were all for £29 (just below the £30 maximum for using the contactless facility on the card).

[BAKERS DOZEN]

Mr BD had his credit card hacked a couple of years ago. The card was in his wallet and very rarely used but someone bought 29 X-Box games @ £29.99 each in Tesco in Hertfordshire (all were individual purchases) and then a camera for £750 at another store a few minutes later. The card company then phoned him to ask him if he had made the purchases. As we live in Manchester and they called him on our home number and he answered I think that told them it was all fraudulent. They then blocked the card and sent him another one but both cards appeared on his account for months. They would not remove the debt from the the first card until they had finished their enquiries. Never happier than when they finally deleted it. Like you said why should it take 29 transactions never mind 80 to set alarm bells ringing?

[Jackdaw33]

That's what I was thinking, Chico, but how do you clone a card? Must admit I'm very suspicious of contactless and never use it.

[June_O]

Santander are really good. Recently I got a text asking if I'd booked an apartment in Spain on my CC. I hadn't and the previous transaction a couple of minutes before had been for 1 euro in Spain. They stopped the card and froze the transaction immediately. I know it was through Booking.com they hacked it as I'd booked a hotel room the previous month this is the only time I've used my card for months.

[Buenchico]

^^^ Contactless payments can actually be safer than ones where you enter your PIN, JD33. It's physically inserting your card into a machine that presents a risk of the data on it being 'skimmed':
https://www.lovemoney.com/news/15992/credit-card-cloning-fraudsters-spent-2000-on-my-husbands-credit-card-without-stealing-it

[Togo]

The thief obviously had an account with sky bet. What they have done is change the payment details when placing the bets to the ones on the stolen card. Now all online gambling sites are compelled to verify the identity of the "account" holder by law. The law came in to being to stop money laundering by drug dealers who used gambling to "clean" up large amounts of cash that could not be accounted for otherwise. So if the bank can identify the transactions with sky using your details then sky should be able to identify the account that accommodated them. Whether the I.D. that sky supposedly verified is another matter. But if they can and the thief can be identified then you will find that you will find it very difficult to get those details. Just in case you arrange for the right justice to be meted out.

[Peter Pedant]

I dont see that this is a big deal if they are gonna give you your money back

I think it is more a signal to tell you to be more careful with your moolah.

Nasty neighbours had one last night where the OAP had not checked her account for eight months and had kept the card with the PIN number. A friend has used it again and again. And a good samaritan paid her winter bill.
Anglesey - they had sheep wandering in and out of camera, and someone called the ewe - my love.....and you know

[Deskdiary]

It turns out it was my wife's card (joint account)....I am beyond impressed with Barclays. Yes, the transactions went through, and I think they should have been stopped before 80 of them went through, but Barclays have already credited my account with the stolen money.

So do Barclays now retrieve their money from Asda and Skybet, or do they simply take it on the chin? (I'd love it if they went after the chavs, but I doubt that's possible).

[237SJ]

I expect they take it on the chin. They are probably insured against it. It's a computer that stops fraudulent transactions, not a person which is a bit of a cop out really as the bank can just blame it on the computer.

[Atheist]

I think a slow and painful death is a bit strong. I think Chav is insensitive. I'm sorry about your loss, but don't be violent about it.

[gingejbee]

I, too, am impressed by Barclays....earlier this week I attempted (online) to make a payment for a very large amount into a new fixed-rate bond with a small bank. They didn't allow the transfer and phoned me (within minutes) to ask me several security questions to ensure that I wasn't being scammed...only then did they release the funds.

[Deskdiary]

Clearly Atheist has never been stolen from. If he/she had, they would without a single shadow of a doubt feel differently. They would be wouldn't be telling the truth if they said anything different (unless they condoned the theft).

[Fairlight]

It would be good if you could tie them up and just threaten them with a slow and painful death but obviously not carry it out :)