Debit Card Skimmed

Do you use your debit card online? If so the device you used, phone or laptop may have a virus, or any website you used it on may have a virus on the site.

If you only used it in stores, any of the staff or card machines or back end computer systems may be dodgy and be keeping a record of each card used.

Banks profile fraud to try help locate the source and notify the business and block other cards used there.

What usually happens is a few small charges to see its working and if flagged then a big big purchase

typically taxi apps would require you to verify adding the card to their payment methods through the respective bank app, I know that’s been the case with mine.

personally, I never use by debit card online, credit only. just lowers the possibility of the above happening

Statistically and technically it’s very unlikely to have originated from an in person transaction. Always exceptions though. Did you hear anything from the bank?

Phone or Pc hacked?

Account hacked?

Something similar happened me five years ago, with an AIB credit card being hit twice over a few months.

I never really got to the bottom of it. I did put the new card on Google Pay at the time, so I thought maybe there was some breach there or off my phone.

I'm thinking it has to be some related transaction to the original compromised card that was pushed through.

That said I in the past had annual travel insurance pushed through on to a new debit card despite me not providing the new card details to them, they wouldn't have the new expiry or CVT number but still got payment.

The more common possibility is MasterCard automatic biller or Visa updater keeps throwing the new card into your card on file merchants. What this does is when you're issued a new card instead of continuously updating every service (i.e. PayPal, Amazon, gym memberships) it will pass the new card information to the recurring biller or card on file merchant. Many posts about this. On paper this is a great idea unless the fraudulent transaction itself was a recurring/card on file biller. This can create a perpetual cycle, BUT all banks have a way to stop the cycle pending you get to someone competent.

If you have Netflix, Disney plus or anyplace your card info is stored I would cancel them as soon as you can.

This is an interesting thread and I like to know how they got your card information in the first place if you figure it out.

Also the fact that they could charge you new card is news to me.

You're lucky a higher amount of money wasn't taken and I think that might be down to a text from the bank about exchange rates. If it was in euros you wouldn't have got that text.

Is it possible the old card has not yet been cancelled and will still be considered active until you use the new card? I'd go to an ATM in a bank branch and do a balance check with the new card.

If the old card has been cancelled then your bank has some answering to do if debits are still appearing when there is no active card on the account. Typically, a new card can't be used for online purchases untill it's used in an ATM or POS terminal and the PIN manually entered. So even if someone had all the details from that new card, they can't make a purchase or do anything until you activate the card.

I noticed this last year when my credit and debit cards expired. PayPal were automatically given the new expiry date. I’d much rather update my details manually than have the risk of the replacement for a stolen card being automatically updated.

And that’s what scares me, that a whole new card would still get passed on.

Card issuers have to try to balance convenience against security. They could absolutely decide to block every future transaction on a card once a single one is fraudulent and they could close they account and not issue any updates through Account Updater. That would definitely put a stop to fraud on that card but it would also inconvenience a lot of customers and merchants. What if you had checked out of a hotel that day and still had a pending payment or trashed the room and they wanted to bill you for it? What if you had a recurring payment agreed with someone but your payment was declined and they added a penalty to your account? Stopping account updates would make updating your card details on tens of websites much harder for you.

On top of that, card issuers make money from every transaction on your card so it's in their interests to keep your Netflix and Disney subscriptions running and to make your next Amazon purchase as one-click as possible. They want your new card details out there so you can keep spending because when people have to think about updating their card details, they might think about not renewing those subscriptions.

It's poor form that the AIB app doesn't give a push notification every time there's a transaction on the account.

To answer the OP , I’ve noticed strange things on a couple of my cards , which have been cancelled or refunded . The common denominator was use in the local shop and probably more importantly using in store ATM’s . I tend to only withdraw cash on bank ATM’s now and use PayPal / Apple Pay online .

With Curve card you can switch between bank cards like front AIB or Revolut. If you turn it to Revolut card you get notified twice if a transaction happened. Once from Curve and then from Revolut.

Just saying......