Just had a call from CIBC to check some transactions on our credit card yesterday.

Looks as though our credit card has been cloned again (it happened to us back in the UK at a local petrol station but they were more 'glamorous' shoppers and spent thousands in Harrods, Selfridges and Harevy Nicks).

I'm not that surprised really - we have been exteremely careful about letting our credit card out of our sight after having it happen to us once, although we do find this difficult as culturally it seems absolutely fine here to give a stranger your credit card in a resturant and they disappear with it for about ten minutes before you get it back.

Although it seemed absolutely no hassle from the bank's point of view: they just confirmed which transactions weren't ours and said we won't get charged at all and they'll sort out new cards, etc.

The most baffling thing for me is that they chose to go on a spending spree in SASKATOON of all places!!!!! (Have never even been to the border with Saskatchewan yet myself!)

Despite having been here for over 2yrs at the time, and not having left Canada in all that time, my Amex card was used to buy airline tickets at Luton airport last year.

Amex put me through the mill, and left it to me to prove that I'd not purchased the tickets. It took 8mths to sort out and involved debt collectors, Luton police and Canadian immigration (to prove I was in Canada at the time). All for the sake of a few hundred dollars.

It's good that your bank's resolved things quickly for you.

I had quite a different experience with Amex. They called me because of suspicious use of my ex-wife's card (a supplemental card on my account), I knew she couldn't have been buying tanks and tanks of petrol in Brampton because she was in Europe. Amex cancelled all the cards and couriered new ones to me (in America) the ex (in Switzerland), the mistress (also in America) and the kids (don't recall where they were). They removed the fraudulent charges (clothes, shoes and very much petrol) without any bother. The service almost justified the hundreds of dollars a year it costs to have all these cards.

Sounds like how it should get resolved. Amex didn't even offer me a replacement card, so I closed my account with them.

I should think so too. When there are so many cards with no fee they ought to offer a premium service to go with their charges.

it doesnt really matter where the card is being used as your details have been skimmed by someone.normally the details would of been e mailed around the globe and your card then used for purchase's.i would be concerned to know how my details where obtained.

point to remember,NEVER EVER give your card to anyone,ask for the card machine at your table or go to the machine at the pay point.this will limit your chances of being skimmed.

always beware when taking cash from a cash machine,try and do it at the bank and not at a busy public machine.
when purchasing from website's you do run the risk of your details being hacked but this is just as likely as when you phone a hotel up to book and pay for the room(you still are giving a total stranger your details)

with websites always ensure on the url bar(top bar that will say www.xxxx.com) it has https:/www.websitename.com this will limit
your chances.

hope this helps

edit

the above is a major mistake,please refrain from this..

Try buying gas in BC without either cash, or leaving a credit card with the cashier while you fill up. Sometimes there's no choice.

yeah definitely a cultural thing , I think you would get some very strange looks in a restaurant if you demanded that they didn't take your card !!!!

Still it works the other way , they never check the signature , mine has degraded beyond belief in the last year.

What no Pay at Pump??.... I love not having to deal with people anymore!

Some places have it, some don't. The ones I frequent most (out of convenience and price) don't, so I have to trust them with my card or carry $150 of cash with me.

Even those that do have pay-at-the-pump generally have a $100 maximum gas dispensing limit, which doesn't come close to filling a tank these days, so it means a trip inside to leave a card anyway.

Pre pay is the law now in BC

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...-gaspains.html

I'm with the Royal Bank of Scotland and for online transactions I now have my own personal chip and pin card which is handy.

When I was in Canada in April they stopped me taking money out the atm machine because they thought my card was stolen as it was being used in Canada, it's good that they were being secure.

Unfortunately the latest trend in card cloning is to hack directly into the card machines; they can capture thousands of cards that way from a single location, particularly at petrol stations and the like.

That's even more of an issue with PIN cards, because they get the card details and the PIN.

Hey if you're interested I've got the URL of a website that kidmeup reckons is used to fence dodgy card details. Why he thought I'd want it is beyond me ......

Shall I start the bidding at 1000CAD?

Many UK banks are now doing this. Unfortunately they're not very good at advising customers of the new policy, so when you're unable to get cash out of the machine you're somewhat inconvenienced.

They advertise cards as enabling you to get cash from X number of machines all over the world. It's a bit much when they leave you without a paddle with no advance notice.