UNIVERSAL CANE - bank scam?

[Nemesis]

Nowt to do with Period Property - but there seems to be some banking scam going on.

Check your bank statements, and if a legit purchase using your bank card comes up as UNIVERSAL CANE (instead of the firm you thought you paid by debit card ( who seem to be a bit bemused... UC I mean...) then contact your bank.

 

[Penners]

Nem, a couple of questions.

Do you mean that (a) I make a legitimate purchase on my debit card, then (b) that purchase (with the correct sum of money shown) appears on my bank statement with the payee listed as Universal Cane, instead of the actual payee?

Is this a duplicate? In other words, does the genuine payee also get the same amount?

I googled Universal Cane, and there appears to be an artificial flower importer in London by that name.

There's a huge amount of phishing going on at the moment. I get an email almost every day. Some of them are reasonably competent at looking and sounding like a communication from a bank (although rarely my bank), but others are incredibly crude, mis-spelled and naive.

 

[Nemesis]

Penners - not at all sure what is going on. It's not phishing as we are well aware and not naive.

A couple of weeks' ago, the OH got fuel at our local garage.

I check about every couple of days the account on the internet, and a transaction came up as UC.

Had not a clue - but found a receipt for petrol at the local garage.

Called the bank - bit surprised - said the payment had in fact been made to garage. Same time, same amount as UC!

Took statement to garage (as very local and very long term customer) and having checked through BP account - no cash received. Called bank...

Ongoing bank investigation etc.

Today - the bank statement online - a payment to UC - not a lot, £12.88. Called bank - which called UC - who said that they had a number of calls, questioning what on earth was happening, but apparently did not wish to discuss further with our bank... Bank says his PIN used...


Unfortunately, OH cannot find a receipt this time or recall what on earth he could have spent the cash on, but it was not at UC.

The local garage says it's not our prob but theirs, although feels that maybe there could (had we not raised the issue) maybe some black spot made on our credit ref.

As OH cannot at all recall what on earth the transaction could have been - if any - fraught and difficult week - it's really a bit of a buu*ger.

The bank has blocked his debit card and will issue a new one, but as an afterthought he has called again and now it's blocked, the bank can't give details of when the transaction took place! He may have been in bed at the time!

Also - suggest all do a scan of the internet via your security software. Although I have up to date stuff, and last scanned on Tuesday, overnight, yesterday I had a lot of difficulty and slowness and did a full scan last night.

65 problems - spyware in cookies!

Not sure why these were not caught before downloaded... but now dealt with. Don't think this can be connected with the above though.

 

[Penners]

65 problems - spyware in cookies!

Hmmm - a rum old do, and I can understand your worries.

If you are really worried that your credit status could be compromised, Experian do a free service whereby you can see your credit record. Obviously they're trying to sell you an "upgraded" service, but the free facility is pretty worthwhile. And they're a well-known, respectable organisation.

http://www.experian.co.uk/creditreport/

As regards your spyware, I shouldn't worry too much. It's probably pretty innocuous. Almost any commercial website that you visit will pop a cookie on to your computer - some of them ask, but many don't. All the cookies usually do is recognise you the next time you visit that website. And many of the antispyware software packages have a tendency to exaggerate the dangers of such things - it's in their interests to do so.

That said, some spyware is pretty dodgy stuff, but much of it isn't.

If you want to stop cookies entering your computer via your browser, have a look at this website. Most browsers are covered.

http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=1

 

[Nemesis]

I know, but I do a weekly scan and usually it's fine!

This was very odd.


Anyhow - just thought I'd give some warning. It may be a small amount, but maybe a million bank customers 'donating' a few transactions will add up to a great deal, until the banks find out what is going on.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

"And what, I ask, has much of this to do with period property?" - by Nemesis on Wed 11th Jun, 2008 11:21 on the "PC Censorship?" thread when I answered her question on changing family demographics.

"Nowt to do with Period Property - but there seems to be some banking scam going on." - by Nemesis on Sat 14th Jun, 2008 1:58 on her own thread dedicated to a £12.38 banking scam.

Shurely shome mishtake?

Hoist by her own petard?

(tongue in cheek post alert)

 

[Nemesis]

No - just trying to be a good neighbour like we used to do in the old days of this forum when there were virus alerts etc.

But maybe I'll not bother in future. Just PM people. The two together BTW were rather more than twelve quid, and it seems we are not alone in this one.

PS what are Chavs? Do tell. People's perceived prejudices interest me.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

PS what are Chavs? Do tell. People's perceived prejudices interest me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav

Hopefully a passing phase - in earlier generations the middles classes were much exercised by punks, mods & rockers, etc, etc.

Virus alerts? There is a school of thought that the routine passing on of virus alerts about the latest threat that eats your hard-disk and children in one fell swoop, has a greater impact (traffic-wise or in terms of end-user productivity) than the actual virus. Hoaxers have cottoned on to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_hoax

 

[Nemesis]

That's why we don't do virus alerts any longer.

However, this is a new scam - new to our bank and it seems a number of others. So I would suggest people keep an eye on their bank accounts. I'd also suggest keeping an eye on their computers - despite my software being updated twice daily, I seem, having run another scan, to have picked up another IE malware cookie, now dealt with. Not something that normally happens either. Nothing too harmful I gather, but slows things down:

http://www.spywaredb.com/remove-bs-serving-sys/

I'm less than convinced by the Wiki definition of Chav BTW.

 

[Penners]

Hoist by her own petard?

I know you're just teasing, FW, but I must add a comment. There's surely a big difference between passing on a genuine, potentially very useful warning like this one, and the kind of off-topic drivel that I tend to indulge in.

 

[Nemesis]

I add, Penners, that according to my bank the said firm is a 'household appliance' one, which the one we both have found on the internet isn't. Yet although this appears on the bank statement as UC, according to my bank the cash went (in the first instance) to the local garage! Which it certainly didn't... The second one only happened yesterday and the person who apparently spent the cash on Wednesday via a debit card with PIN cannot find a receipt and cannot recall what he bought... despite a thorough turning out of pockets to hunt amongst the marbles, string, bottle tops, dead frogs, cigarette cards etc.
UC says it knows nothing...

So the ways and means of defrauding us from our hard earned get ever more involved. As someone who had two grand removed from her VISA account earlier this year, in two lots of someone ordering computer equipment, although now refunded by the bank, it's not a great feeling, and if it can happen to us it can happen to all and anyone. I'm very security aware, and the bank tells me I do all the right things. I'm starting to think keeping cash under the feather mattress might be safer. Now that many places don't take cheques for goods, use of bank cards is growing daily, and fraud is ever more sophisticated.

Anyhow, bank cards have again been stopped, and new are being sent, and it's spot inconvenient to say the least.

Drivel David? Nah! witty and sophisticated banter, surely? :wink:

 

[FamilyWiggs]

There's surely a big difference between passing on a genuine, potentially very useful warning like this one, and the kind of off-topic drivel that I tend to indulge in.

I was just teasing... In the spirit of public service I could regale you all with 2 scams that we were hit by recently - Nigeria Telecom and some Chav (for undoubtedly it was one of the feral under-species that perpetrated said crime :wink: ) who bought train tickets and cinema tickets with our card.

But I won't - there seem to be more and varied scams than we have time to keep on top of. Vigilance is (as Nemesis has shown) the only way to really combat the threat.

 

[Flyfisher]

We've had a credit card stopped by the bank twice in the last year or so due to fradulent use. Cash being withdrawn in Malaysia alerted the bank and they called me to confirm it was fraudulent. The previous transaction was in a local petrol station. Subsequently it was reported that police had broken a local scam using petrol stations whereby a box of tricks is inserted between the cards reader and the PC in the petrol station and skims off all the data, including your PIN, from the card. Seems that it's relatively easy to persuade a single, bored and low-paid petrol station attendant to turn a blind eye during their shift.

The second time, the bank stopped the card as they'd had a 'security alert' and our card, among many others, was apparently 'at risk', so it was re-issued as a precaution.

Such fraud, sadly, seems inevitable and the fraudsters can be expected to continually evolve new methods in the eternal cat-and-mouse 'game'. I have four credit cards for this very reason; I only use one at a time but have the others to fall back on if/when one is cancelled. I never use debit cards as I don't believe there is as much protection if things go wrong with the transaction.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I never use debit cards as I don't believe there is as much protection if things go wrong with the transaction.

Don't know if there is less protection formally, but the 2 problems we have had recently with our debit cards involved a call to the bank who cancelled the transactions there and then, the money was refunded within a couple of days and the new cards arrived shortly thereafter. Oh, and I had a form to return by pre-paid enveloped too.

I'm not exactly sure how much more protection a credit card could have given me, that I would have been prepared to risk usury interest rates for...

 

[Flyfisher]

I think the basis for extra protection with credit cards is that when you use them your 'contract' is with the CC company and not the vendor. So, if the vendor (e.g.) doesn't send the goods you just inform the CC company and cancel that transaction, so using an 'unknown' online vendor carries very little risk. And, of course, you get around 4 weeks before having to actually pay, which is usually plenty of time to verify that the goods are OK.

Fraud protection may, or may not, be the same with debit cards but it's always seemed to me that, because the cash is debited from your account the next day, if there are any problems you end up out of pocket while pursuing the problem. That's not likely to happen with credit cards because of the 4 week delay (sometimes more if you time things right).

As for interest rates on CC cards, there's no need to incur them if you fully pay your outstanding balance each month. Indeed, you actually gain interest by delaying payment.

 

[Flyfisher]

[duplicate deleted]

 

[FamilyWiggs]

FF - yep, get all that.

Had a friend that used a Tesco CC for all their shopping and other expenses and earned a "fortune" in Tesco vouchers at the same time.

Having worked hard to get rid of student loans, bank loans, overdrafts and credit cards (to be replaced by mortgage!) a few years after leaving Uni, we've never really fancied going back down that route.

SWMBO is very disciplined - but me, I'd never remember to pay off the balance in time (I always ended up with the "Editor's choice" book each month about acupuncture, aboriginal cave art, or the field hospitals of the Crimean war!).

Can see the benefit of the CC online protection, but to be honest we do most of our shopping online (saves having to look Chav shop assistants in the eye :wink: ), and have never had a problem online with a transaction. The 2 scams we were victims of, arose precisely because we used our cards in person in the "big smoke".

 

[Nemesis]

Interestingly, the term 'charver' or 'charva' is in fact a relatively new one in the NE used in this way, but its derivation as far as I can recall is from 'charv,' which used to be used to describe those of Romany descent...

http://www.akakul.co.uk/the_charva_guide

 

[Nemesis]

Which this also seems to agree with:

http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2433&start=0&sid=1b793bddeaac8f4316a4e1c8a72ea120

Finally, "chava" interests me. It's used in parts of Ireland, and it's also used in Carlisle. That might lead one to imagine that it's Celtic in origin - a lone survivor of Cumbrian Gaelic which otherwise died out in the 18th century. (The other Cumbrian Gaelic which some may have encountered is the numbers: yan, tyan, tethera, methera and so on. They were used at Keswick Livestock Market until the 1960s.)

But it's not. It's a Romany word, and the Romany people did settle in Ireland and Cumbria in larger numbers than in other parts of the land. The modern term of abuse "chav" is basically the same word, although used with a different meaning. I believe that "chav" in its modern sense has been used in Chatham for twenty years or more, and was picked up by Chris Evans when he started going on about Chatham Girls. The Ginger One may therefore have done a lot to introduce the term to the wider population.

 

[Flyfisher]

Had a friend that used a Tesco CC for all their shopping and other expenses and earned a "fortune" in Tesco vouchers at the same time.

I use a 'cashback' credit card, so I save 1% on everything I spend - not vouchers but real cash, paid annually just after Christmas which is quite handy!

SWMBO is very disciplined - but me, I'd never remember to pay off the balance in time

Direct debit is the answer - automatically pay off the full amount each month.

I agree about online purchases though - we also buy a lot on-line and have never had problems. Similar to you, I've only had problems when using a card in person - the petrol station I mentioned earlier and a restaurant many years ago. Apparently, restaurants used to be a popular route for cloning cards, but I think that's died down a bit with chip+pin. But frausters are clever and security is a continual 'arms race'