Debit card scammers strike in Cornwall
A rash of debit card fraud has left people throughout the city running to their banks to protect their money. Monique Sequin became wise to the problem when she visited a local supermarket recently -only to get a message at the register saying her debit card wasn't set up.[...]
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A rash of debit card fraud has left people throughout the city running to their banks to protect their money.
Monique Sequin became wise to the problem when she visited a local supermarket recently -only to get a message at the register saying her debit card wasn't set up.
So Sequin made a trip to her bank, Caisse Populaire, where she was told her debit card had been "cloned."
Cloning is often done using a device called a skimmer which is illegally placed on direct payment machines at retail outlets.
When someone swipes a debit card in the payment machine, the skimmer records the card's stored account information, including its pin number, which allows the holder of the information to access the funds in the account.
Seguin said she was lucky not to have any money extracted from her account, but one of her relatives had $300 taken, while two others had their cards cloned as well.
"I asked the bank how this could happen," Seguin said. "They told me either a machine swiped my information or someone was watching when I put my pin number in."
Seguin and her relatives found it suspicious that four members of the same family would fall prey to card cloning.
"There's got to be something really big going on," she said.
All of them have taken the precaution of changing their pin numbers or getting new cards.
Caisse Populaire Montreal Road branch manager Richard Lalonde said all of the bank's members who lost money due to card cloning recently have been reimbursed.
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