went to bed last night, at about midnight a text came through on the mobile. it was our credit alert text that tells you a transaction has been made on your credit card. .
the transaction was for ryanair, but due to insufficient funds the transaction could not be made. thankfully.
only last week we took our money from that account as we rarely use it and only left emergency fund in it. thankfully.

we have been onto allianze and cancelled all our cards. I will not be using cards again.

so, if you do have to use cards make sure you have credit alert from the bank, it was a late transaction, the banks were shut and they are shut today, so i would not have been aware of someone using my card.

that was lucky ...good
bit confused tho..you say credit card ..did you mean debit ..as id have thought if it was a credit card the transaction would not have need cash in the account ! ?

i think it is a debit card, we rarely use it which is why we are so shocked that someone has the number.

well worth knowing , so .....
and people wonder why i wont use my card online in BG...speakes for itself

Golly gosh Star that was a bit of sheer luck for you there. I never use a debit/credit card abroad since we were conned on one of our holidays years ago. Always use cash or the ATM machine now.

Oddy

if you use an ATM machine thats where they can clone the card. the card we were alerted on was for the hole in the wall machine which we have only used 9 times in 3 years.

my cards are now blocked and cancelled. but many people do have to use cards for many things, if you have this bank alert it informs you within minutes of a transaction made, its well worth having. it cost us 10 lev for 50 transactions. even though this illegal transaction was not sucessful, we were still alerted to the attempt.

Here's one for you my card was used on a ferry to buy all sorts of things and when I alerted the bank to it I had a hell of a game trying to convince them that I hadn't been on a ferry in my life. It wasn't till I got proof that I hadn't left Bulgaria at the time the card was used that they actually believed me and refunded all the money that had been stolen.

Any form of Bank cards are risky these days we have something called Card Guard. But worse than that are the so called automatic paying in machines inside your Bank. we paid in 500 quid once and lucky for me I kept the receipt. This must have been about 15 - 20 years ago when the rotten machines were first introduced. we ended up seeing the Branch manager who said prove you put the money in. I showed him the magic bit of paper and said shall I call the police or you. He went crimson. Money matter rectified plus a bit of compensation.

Good luck but it dosen't matter where you are these days your cards are always at risk.

just a word of warning, since cancelling my debit card, there have been 5 more attempts to use this cloned card, just got one now from france, the other was romania, uk ect.

I know people do need these cards. but please use the banks text warning system, its cost 10 levs for 50 texts, each time a transaction is made on the card you will be informed immediately, even if its you drawing from the hole in the wall, it will tell you. this gives you chance to stop the card.
i cant believe the cheek of these people. :Headbang:thankfully all attempts fail as this is not now a valid account.

starlite wrote:

just a word of warning, since cancelling my debit card, there have been 5 more attempts to use this cloned card, just got one now from france, the other was romania, uk ect.

I know people do need these cards. but please use the banks text warning system, its cost 10 levs for 50 texts, each time a transaction is made on the card you will be informed immediately, even if its you drawing from the hole in the wall, it will tell you. this gives you chance to stop the card.
i cant believe the cheek of these people. :Headbang:thankfully all attempts fail as this is not now a valid account.

Thanks for update Star really please you acted when you did. Text warnings does seem like a good protection /option to have

Very informative, Starlite, but how do you go about getting the text warnings?

the banks sets up the text system.

Thanks, how thick am I? Might need to take an interpreter though!

Another little tip..I never leave the transaction slip at the ATM ..always goes in my pocket! I've seen 'lowlifes' going through the bins a picking these out. This is important, particularly if the slip shows your account balance as it would normally be much higher than the average persons.

My bank always phones me if anything looks a bit 'sus'. I don't have a credit card, instead I use a debit card which has a very small limit..when I get near that limit, I just go into the bank and top it up.

Works for me.