ID Theft for over $2000!!!!
Hello Everyone,
Today, I tried to get some money out of an ATM. This was the first time I have tried to get money out since we left Salvador on Monday. Ozell and I were getting ready to buy bus tickets to Belo Horizonte so we stopped at Banco de Brazil's ATM here in Porto Seguro. Ozell was able to get money out. I was not able to get any money after trying two different machines. Of course, the error messages were in Portuguese so I couldn't tell exactly what they said. We were able to get our bus tickets because Ozell had enough money. On the way back to the hotel, I tried two other banks. The last was an HSBC which is a bank we have used throughout our trip. I was unsuccessful again- first when I requested $R400 and then when I requested an even more meager $R200. HSBC's ATMs do state their error messages in English, and it told me my daily limit had been exceeded. Since I had not attempted to pull any money out since Feb 2nd, I started to get pretty concerned.
When we returned to the hotel, I got online and checked my checking account. I knew that I should have had about $6000 in it because I just transferred $4000 from my savings account to get me to $6000 and had only taken out about $200 since then. I was shocked to see that I was down to about $4100!!!!
Besides a debit by the US Department of Education on Feb 3rd which I authorized for my student loan payment, there were at least 7 or more ATM transactions for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th all made in Salvador, Brazil which we left on the 2nd. I made none of the ATM transactions except for the very first one on the 2nd. But what was more disturbing is that my card was not stolen. I have my card. And my PIN number is in my head. I have also been pretty damn diligent about covering up when I type in my PIN so I don't know how this happened. Also, the person withdrawing my funds was able to pull out more than $1000 in a day! Even if I wanted to pull out that much money, my bank would not let me. I am supposed to have a daily limit. I thought I personally told the bank that I wanted my limit to be $400/day when I set up the account, but even if I didn't, the lady from Washington Mutual's Fraud Division told me that all of the MasterCard debit card holders have a maximum daily limit of $500/day. So again, I do not know how the thief was able to pull this shit off and either did she!!
I am still very frazzled over all of this. $2000 is a lot of fucking money- except to those Wall Street executives! Cocksuckers. The good news is that the lady from the Fraud Division shut down my ATM card so no more activity could take place, filed a claim with the bank, told me that my lost money would be deposited back into my account within 5 business days, is sending me a new card to my San Diego address, and told me that I will need to sign an affidavit for the claim. Besides the headache of signing an affidavit for the claim when I am traveling through South America, I am much more relieved. The bank could catch this person if they wanted to. The dates and times of the transactions are known. There are cameras at all of the ATMs which must have recorded the thief's face. But I am sure it is not worth their time for the $2000 lost so this Brazilian scumbag will get away with it all.
So even though I was not physically molested or accosted with this theft, Brazil has beaten all of the other South American countries combined, and has stolen over $2000 from me and Washington Mutual. Fucking cocksuckers!
MARCIN DO NOT BRING YOUR NEW CAMERA ON THIS TRIP NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO- THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO MORALS DOWN HERE!!!
Cheers,
Sean
posted by Sean @ 11:23 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I don't know if this is what happened to you, but I saw just a special report on CNN world and thought of you. People are stealing the information off the magnet strip of your ATM card. When you swipe your card, the thieves get your bank info. Then, they have strategic cameras that can see you type your pin. Apparently the US accounts are very vulnerable, because they are dragging their feet because upgrading the technology would be so expensive, because there are so many ATMs in the US. Here is a video. Hope link works. If not google, "ATM skimmer".
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2008/12/24/howard.atm.scam.cnn?iref=videosearch
Kevin- I think this is exactly what happened. Another friend mentioned this scenario to me also. I used the ATM station closest to our hostel the night before we left Salvador. All the lights were off in the ATM lobby which should have been a sign that something was wrong, but the doors were still open so I thought the lights were just turned off by accident. It was pretty damn dark in the lobby with just the glow of the screens providing any light. There was no one else in there and since it was so dark, I did not cover up when typing in my PIN. I needed the light from the screen to see the keypad below. Now, I am pretty confident that the thief set up this entire situation. I'm sure they had the card readers attached and then had low light or infrared camera mounted to look for the PINs. So we will see how Washington Mutual Chase handles this... I will keep everyone informed....
you need to keep an eye on those card readers, both the external swipe and the internal dip. I have done some design work on ATMS and other similar money handling equipment. Our client informed us that thieves will attach skimmers onto the card reader, and they can be almost imperceptible.
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