Laser card cloned €6500 stolen advice needed.

layke

Hi All,

My uncle was over in Italy recently and bought a few bits and bobs from a Benetton store (some motorbike gear) which was the only time he used it over there. The shop owner said he had to take the card to the back of the shop to check his details even though he had passport ID with him. No problem he said afer all it's pefectly understandable to do so with him being foreign and all. However after returning home he recieved his statement and there was €6500 missing.

The bank said he must of had his card stolen so he went down and litterally showed that he still had them. So the only alternative is that they wee cloned. Now the bank are saying that they will have to investigate the theft which is fine and they neglegted to mention f he will get his money back.

The question I ask for those in the know, is this card insured for theft/cloning? Or is there any hope of getting his cash back?

I didn't know where to post this up so if it's in the wrong place please move it but I ask that the mod send me a PM so I know where it went.

Thanks.

miju

i think banks will cover it to a degree. am stating the obvious here (because someone will so may as well get it out of the way) your uncle was incredibly stupid to let his card out of his sight in the first place especially in a foreign country

cast_iron

If he is a victim of fraud (he certainly seems to be in this case), then he will not be out of pocket.

Obviously, seeing as it's a nice bit of money, the bank wants to make sure it is actually fraud before they pay up.

I think there is only one exception to this rule and that's if you lose your card and not report it as lost/stolen. Then it can get messy.

Tipsy Mac

A Laser card cannot be used for any store based transaction outside of Ireland, it can only be used in an ATM machine in countries outside Ireland so really the shop shouldn't have been looking for the card at all. So if I was a bank I would want to know how or why his pin number found it's way from the Laser card which couldnt be used in the store based machine to be then used in an ATM machine.

Rhonda9000

Tipsy Mac wrote:

A Laser card cannot be used for any store based transaction outside of Ireland, it can only be used in an ATM machine in countries outside Ireland so really the shop shouldn't have been looking for the card at all.

Laser cards are paired up with the Maestro international debit system so I think this would explain..

mcaul

You can use the laser card in nearly every store worldwide that accepts cards but you must be present in the store. - Hence online stores do not accept laser.

A refund will take a few weeks but should have no problems with it.

layke

Cool, thanks for your help guys. Tis much appreciated!

cgarvey

mcaul wrote:

Hence online stores do not accept laser.

They do, I'm afraid, and in a legitimate Cardholder Not Present fashion too.

lostexpectation

you should contact bennetton too, obviously that store owner is ripping people off wholesale

MrPudding

Tipsy Mac wrote:

A So if I was a bank I would want to know how or why his pin number found it's way from the Laser card which couldnt be used in the store based machine to be then used in an ATM machine.

Try reading the post. The card was cloned. If you clone a card you can have whatever pin number you want. That is one of the nice things about cloning. Ah....so I'm told....:o

MrP

layke

lostexpectation wrote:

you should contact bennetton too, obviously that store owner is ripping people off wholesale

Good plan, but not until the police do their bit first. Without evidence/conviction it will probably go nowhere.

cast_iron

MrPudding wrote:

Try reading the post. The card was cloned. If you clone a card you can have whatever pin number you want. That is one of the nice things about cloning. Ah....so I'm told....:o

MrP

Does that not make chip and pin fairly useless then?

I always assumed the pin was checked via the bank's computer system as opposed to matched to the card only.

MrPudding

cast_iron wrote:

Does that not make chip and pin fairly useless then?

I always assumed the pin was checked via the bank's computer system as opposed to matched to the card only.

It is not so simple. I think the chip and pin end of things is pretty secure. The problem is, the card still have a magnetic strip, this is the bit that gets skimmed and the info put on another card. This card could then be used, obviously in retailers that do not insist on chip and pin.

MrP

mcaul

cgarvey wrote:

They do, I'm afraid, and in a legitimate Cardholder Not Present fashion too.

This was an answer to a previous post. A laser card cannot be used on sites that do not have a clearing system in ireland. e.g. most non-irish sites, but can be used when the cardholder is physically in a store in another country.

dingding

cast_iron wrote:

Does that not make chip and pin fairly useless then?

I always assumed the pin was checked via the bank's computer system as opposed to matched to the card only.

When you go to withdraw the money from an ATM the pin no is checked against the one stored in the computer system.

It they cloned the card without the pin, they would have to go into retailers and purchase items / get cash back. This could be done without a pin.

cast_iron

dingding wrote:

When you go to withdraw the money from an ATM the pin no is checked against the one stored in the computer system.

That's what I thought. MrP's post confused me a little, I may have taken it too literally:

MrPudding wrote:

If you clone a card you can have whatever pin number you want.

MrPudding

cast_iron wrote:

That's what I thought. MrP's post confused me a little, I may have taken it too literally:

My bad, sorry about that. I did not phrase it very well, in fact I phrased it completely wrong.:o

I think it is generally considered that the chip from a chip and pin card cannot be usefully cloned.

The pin number is held on the chip but it is hashed. The banks systems also hold a hashed version of you pin. When you type your pin into an atm it gets hashed by the keypad unit. Technically you pin number is not compared by the bank but a hash of the pin you enter is compared to a hash of your pin held by the bank.

In the whole of the bank system the only time during a transaction where your pin is not hashed is in the initial instant when you type it in, the length of time it take to get from the buttons to the encryption unit. There are very strict guidelines for how quickly the encryption needs to happen.

If card had no magnetic strip they would be considerably more secure.

MrP