Credit card cloning and skimming was something I had heard of but had little idea of how to safeguard against it, mainly because like most people, I assumed it would never happen to me.
In October, I dropped into an OXXO in Santa Anita outside Guadalajara to collect a few supplies on my way to a friend’s birthday party.
The store was virtually empty, and I was second in line at the till. At my turn, I pulled out my wallet to find I only had $20 pesos. I would have to pay with a Banorte debit card. The red-haired cashier packed my bag and I left.
The next day, I tried and failed to get money out from an ATM. I rang the bank and was told that my card was blocked.
“Did you make a 7,300 pesos transaction last night?” the bank representative asked.
The answer was no. But somebody had.
At first I thought I had been massively overcharged, paying $US500 for four beers. I almost never pay by card and had only used it once in the past few months. This was frustrating but at least it meant that I knew where the mistake had happened. Only one other person except me had touched the card.
I went back to the store but the supervisor said it was impossible. They scan the bar codes of all the products. They can’t accidentally add an extra couple of zeros to your purchase.
I rang the bank again and asked what type of transaction it had been. I was told that someone had taken the money out of an ATM at 11:20 p.m.
This was a mystery for three reasons. Firstly, I had heard that you could only take out 5,000 pesos a day. Secondly, how did they have my PIN number? Thirdly, at that time my card was safely in my wallet.After posting a note on Facebook, a friend told me that the store clerk might have used a card scanner to clone my card. He said that they weren’t easily perceptible. Not only that but there were some banks that let you take out more than 5,000 pesos, and with a cloned card you don’t even need the PIN.
For the next week, I went through the laborious and stressful process of trying to reclaim the money from the bank. They wanted copies of official identification, my birth certificate, a letter detailing the transaction type and photographs of the card.
A week after sending the documents I was astounded to get an email telling me the case had been resolved, with the decision going against me. According to the Banorte, there was nothing suspicious about the transaction.
I had the right to appeal so I sent off more documents.
In the week waiting for a response, I contacted the OXXO store and spoke to the area manager. He invited me to meet him in the car park outside, where we could see into the store.
“Do you recognize the attendant who served you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “There she is. The girl with the dyed-red hair.”
He told me he would check the CCTV and see if there was any suspicious activity.
On October 31, I got a reply to my appeal. The subject line didn’t bode well: Case solved – no suspicious activity found. The bank claimed that the transaction had been carried out with the original card, not a copy.
The next day, the OXXO manager called. “We checked the video but there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.”
By this point, I started to think it was a lost cause.
Later, in the staffroom of the university where I teach, I was loudly outlining the injustice of it all to a friend. Mathias, a lecturer I had never met before, overheard and gave me a piece of advice he said might get me the money back.
“You need to go to the Comision Nacional para la Proteccion y Defensa de los Usuarios de Servicios,” he said. “On Lopez Cotilla. They’ll help you out.”
He also said that the bank would reject my complaint as many times as I made it, hoping that I would give up and accept the charge myself. Keeping insurance costs down was a bigger priority than customer service, he said.
Condusef is a public institution that monitors banking practices on behalf of the consumer. I only visited once. They wanted copies of my correspondence with Banorte, as well as copies of my passport and proof of address.
To my great delight, one month later when I went to withdraw some money I found I had more in my account than I expected. I phoned the bank to check, and they confirmed that they had reimbursed me. It hadn’t been me in that ATM booth after all.
It was a huge relief. The past two months had been a genuine strain. More than the money was at stake. The companies that I had contacted had showed no interest in honesty and it was hard not to take it personally.
Nowadays, I never pay with my debit card. Fraudsters operate in gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants and anywhere else you might let your card out of sight. It only takes two seconds.
The situation taught me the value of persistence and the advantages of asking around. The more people you speak to, the better your chances of getting the information you need. If it hadn’t have been for Mathias, I would never have got my money back.
Comisión Nacional para la Protección y Defensa de los Usuarios de Servicios (Condusef), López Cotilla 2032, Guadalajara, (33) 3615-5796, www.condusef.gob.mx.