Atm Skimming Alert

[Talisman]

Our card was skimmed at a Kasikom Bank ATM last Sunday afternoon.

Fortunately we only lost 4k as we only use this account for weekly bills. The Mrs had used the ATM on Sunday before crossing to the market across the soi. There were 30-40 people around the ATM as Sunday is the big market day, but the Mrs didn''t notice anyone looking over her shoulder, nor would she have expected a problem as no-one has encountered such a problem up here before.

The account was emptied at the same ATM at 11pm the same evening.

The loss of 4k is not a problem, but I hope they didn't also get some old grannies savings. The ATM takes a photo of the person making a transaction, and that will be forwarded to the police.

If the bank fails to remedy the fraud, we will just change our bank: will update tommorrow, and I really hope that the perps don't turn out to be farangs.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=170440

Edited February 26, 2008 by Talisman

[Talisman]

Well here is the update:

It was indeed a skimming fraud. The Mrs attended the Kasikorn Bank the next morning at 9am. The local plod was present as well as the three other people who had become aware that their accounts had been emptied.

It looks like quite a few other folks were also affected, but these three others mentioned had used the atm on the Sunday, and again the next day, when they discovered the fraud. All their accounts had been emptied at around 11pm on Sunday night, from the same atm used for the skim. At that time of night, the place is like a ghost town.

The local plod showed everyone a photograph taken by the atm, of a Thai dude wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. Needless to say no one recognised him. The police believe the obvious: that its a travelling gang - that the cards were skimmed using some sophisticated skimming technology - they dont know if the skimming device also took the pin details, or whether that took place via the old peeking over the shoulder method.

The banks position was: Everyone will only get their money back once the police have caught the perps!

Our position was: Heres your atm card; now insert it where the sun doesnt shine! We had already opened a new account with one of their three competitors, which we will use merely as a clearing account, with no more than 6-10k sitting there at any one time, and with all withdrawals made inside the bank, not via atm.

One of the other people ripped off was a schoolteacher, she had just taken out a 150k loan from Kasikorn bank, and all the funds had been lost during the skim. When Kasikorn told her that they were not going to redeem her funds, she walked across to the local market, and gave everyone the good news.

There are a lot of folks closing their accounts at the moment! The general gist of the feelings being that money in the Kasikorn bank is not safe, with a lot of those folks talking about putting their savings into the old fashioned methods of either gold or land.

Anyway thats how it panned out: we only lost a few thousand baht, but with house building/land purchases etc, there has been a few million through that account during the last few years - it could have been a darn sight worse!

It's incidental: but the Kasikorn Bank skimmed, was at BauKhao which is a small town around 60 clicks East of Kalasin. It could just as easily have been any atm of any bank in Thailand: the only difference being how each individual bank deals with compensating the victims of the fraud! My guess is they are all the same: it's not the banks problem!

Chow for now!

Edited February 29, 2008 by Talisman

[Farma]

The Phuket Gazette has just published a story on 2 European men arrested for scanning information allegedly to be used in committing bank card forgery.

The story says they're believed to be part of a larger gang that may involve Thai people.

There was another report about a week ago of 2 Brits caught allegedly using cloned cards in Phuket.

The scanning report can be found here http://www.phuketgazette.net/news/