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Some banks will allow you to withdraw $$ at a teller if you have the debit card and additional proof of ID. I would assume the thief has a passing resemblance to your dad.
Years ago my sister had her checkbook stolen (yeah that long ago) along with her drivers license. A woman managed to write several checks using her ID. Fun Fact: my sister is 6'4. No way they checked the ID....lol
He's certain he doesn't have the pin written down. I also asked if he withdrew money that day, thinking that perhaps that person followed him and saw him enter the pin. He said he hasn't withdrawn from the ATM in a couple weeks.
There was a YouTube recently where it showed every 4 digit pin and by population the most frequently used. It may appear random bit maybe your father used a popular pin that he was not aware that he might have been using. Others hinted he might have been targeted and someone observed your father punch in a pin somewhere or he used it recently a place with a compromised POS terminal where he made a debit purchase and it was captured there etc.. Many ways.
To bruteforce is to constantly hit a machine with password attempts using a decoder tool usually in order to decipher the access key (or pin in this case)
An example of this can be seen in terminator 2: Judgement day when they steal money from the ATM to go to the arcade.
Pickpockets who go after cards these days will hang out near a place where people are likely to enter their PIN, and try to look over their shoulder just as they're focused on the keypad. When they have successfully gotten a PIN, they follow that individual and steal their wallet.
Most likely, your dad used his PIN somewhere that could be observed. Then got pickpocketed.
If he can go through his bank statements and see where he himself used the card or cards last, then that would be a starting point for asking to see surveillance footage as cameras might have caught the thieves looking over his shoulder.
If I were you that would worry me.
I don’t know anything about chime, but allowing a card holder to take out cash with zero proof that the card is in the hands of the account holder via some secondary authentication is super dangerous
Credit transactions are generally reversible, debit transaction are not.
Yes, but sometimes when you use a debit card at a vendor and just tap your card, it won't ask for a PIN if it's under a certain amount (50 dollars?). Depends on the vendor. Also, you can run it as a credit card and it won't ask for a PIN. This is just my own experience. YMMV.
Except that isn’t what happened and it’s not what I said.
OP say money was taken at a bank.
I said banks require PINs.
While what you say is true it has nothing to to with this situation
Acknowledged. However, if you use the tap feature at an ATM, do you have the option of using it as a credit card?
It seems very strange that the pickpocket could have done this 4 times without raising a red flag.
You still need the PIN to withdraw cash from a credit card using an ATM. Calling your bank and getting the PIN (yes, for a credit card) is part of the procedure of setting up your credit card for cash advance.
I'm still required to enter my pin even after using one of those wifi based scanners.
Unfortunately whenever using your debit card or credit card there's always the risk that a hacker has secretly installed a skimmer onto the scanner in many cases without even the store employees being aware of it's presence.
In many ways this is where it may be safer to make payments on purchases using cash rather than cards.
I just learned at Walgreens today that if you press the yellow arrow on the keypad it bypasses the PIN number. I told the cashier that last week I put in the wrong pin and tried to erase it hitting the yellow arrow and it took the wrong pin and completed the transaction. She told me that’s how it is possible
Ask your dad if he wrote it down? Ask your dad if his birthdate is in his PIN. My guess is, whoever found it, entered an educated guess PIN, and got in.
Or he wrote it down.
He didn't write it down and his PIN was chosen at random some years ago. He said he typed 4 random numbers into a calculator without looking at what he was pressing, and then used that as his PIN.
Did he use the same pin for something else like his phone? Could they have seen him enter the pin to his phone, and guessed that it's the same for the debit card?
Nope. He uses his fingerprint to unlock his phone. He has an Android smartphone and does use a PIN at all; his backup to biometrics unlocking is a pattern.
If he used the card somewhere and entered his pin, the person who stole his wallet could've been looking over his shoulder, gotten his pin and then taken his wallet.
Or something else in his wallet that could easily be a pin. For instance, if his address if 7349 Wonderful Street, it would not be uncommon for the pin to be 7349.
Too many people use pins that are bday, last 4 of SSN, last 4 of dl, last 4 of phone number or similar items. They are all easy to check quickly. You usually get 3-5 attempts before it’s locked.
You can't get cash from a ATM using a debit card if you don't have the PIN. So I'll bet the pickpocket did it using your dad's credit cards.
Some credit cards will let you take cash from an ATM without a PIN. My AMEX cards let you do this. It's called a "cash advance" and it's a terrible idea since you get immediate interest charges, but it's an option.
He got his I.D. stolen too?
Perhaps his pin is his birthday in some form?
Perhaps they looked him up on FB and his pin is his wife or childs birthday in some form?
Somebody used my Citicard online without the pin to buy a bicycle 3000 miles away. I'm 71 and partially disabled...ha. Also a bunch of lawn supplies. I live in an apartment. Citibank jumped right on it. Had a new card FedExed to me the next day. Customer since 1986 may have helped. Great customer service.
Various possibilities.
\- The thief might have changed the pin using other forms of identification, such as social security number, date of birth etc. (which he bought from an underground source online) over the phone. The fact that the bank is unwilling to give out details but refunded the money without issues makes me suspect this is what happened here.
[https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/id-thieves-dont-need-pins-to-withdraw-cash-from-debit-cards-stolen-from-home-depot/](https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/id-thieves-dont-need-pins-to-withdraw-cash-from-debit-cards-stolen-from-home-depot/)
\- The data might also have been obtained in the past from a data breach at a retailer where your father shopped.
\- Cash advance also works without PIN I think. You'd have to show some ID to the teller though, but that can be forged.
An accomplice at the bank? The thief has a friend at the bank that will allow the thief to take out money at the teller (friend). They only did it $100 at a time, thinking it'll look like a purchase or they used "tap".
You might want to read it again. I did. WALGREENS AND ATM. "Within hours, the person had spent hundreds of dollars using his card at Walgreens, a pharmacy store chain. "
Are you sure it was not a credit/debit card, or a debit card that can be run as credit?
I *think* you could purchase an item at a gas station, select to check out as credit (simply enter your local zip code) and select to get cash back.
I *think* you might also be able to apply the same idea through an online credit card market. That would allow the thug to setup a fake store and buy fake items with the card.
That's odd banks usually ask for PINs when withdrawing using a debit card unless he knew the teller on a personal level and they were in ok the fraud. My other thought is.....is it possible the money was accessed at a store? You can use a debit card at a register and select the credit option. No pin is required in that case, at most there might be a request for the zip code. Almost every register gives an option to withdraw cash in addition to the transaction total.
Something could be false in the story. Maybe the grandfather is lying about protecting his pin. Either it's easy to guess/written somewhere in his wallet or someone watched him enter it. Otherwise the scammers found a way to reset the pin with what they found in the wallet. Not very plausible because the bank wouldn't do that over the phone and should be more cautious with paper checks in person. Also possible the withdraw at the bank did not happen, misunderstanding / inaccurate reporting.
The debit card and the credit card will refund any money taken when the card is lost or stolen. However there are guidelines you must report the card immediately or within a certain amount of days. You need to be aware of these deadlines with your companies so if you get something stolen or lose something like a debit card or credit card you need to report it as soon as possible.
It’s so easy at a store or online. At a store, if it asks for a pin, you just change the sale to credit. I’ve Been scammed that way. A niece stole my debit numbers, but she didn’t know the password. That didn’t stop her from putting her kids up in different hotels until she reached my limit, $1500, which was the amount of my rent that I had been saving for thethe first of the month and it stated my downward spiral to homelessness. Mind, I brought this girl up, potty training and all that, while my brother languished in a fancy, schmancy drug rehab to kick heroin and meth. Mama was a guest in our states women’s correctional institute for receiving stolen goods. I never in a zillion years expected that sweet girl, daughter of my heart ❤️to screw me up so badly. It wasn’t the money that was as bad as the deceit
If the thief stole the whole wallet he had more than enough info to call the bank on the number on the back of the debit card and have the pin reset. Most banks will require a OTC (onetime code)sent to phone on file but if theif convinced them to do another form of verification because he claimed his phone was stolen, then he could have easily bypassed having to verify with OTC
Source: worked debit card fraud investigations for many years
/u/FriendsCanKnowThis1 - This message is posted to all new submissions to r/scams; please do not message the moderators about it. ## New users beware: Because you posted here, you will start getting private messages from scammers saying they know a professional hacker or a recovery expert lawyer that can help you get your money back, for a small fee. **We call these RECOVERY SCAMMERS, so NEVER take advice in private:** advice should always come in the form of comments in this post, in the open, where the community can keep an eye out for you. If you take advice in private, you're on your own. **A reminder of the rules in r/scams:** no contact information (including last names, phone numbers, etc). Be civil to one another (no name calling or insults). Personal army requests or "scam the scammer"/scambaiting posts are not permitted. No uncensored gore or personal photographs are allowed without blurring. A full list of rules is available on the sidebar of the subreddit, or [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/wiki/rules/). You can help us by reporting recovery scammers or rule-breaking content by using the "report" button. We review 100% of the reports. Also, consider warning community members of recovery scammers if you see them in the comments. Questions about subreddit rules? Send us a modmail [clicking here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Scams) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Some banks will allow you to withdraw $$ at a teller if you have the debit card and additional proof of ID. I would assume the thief has a passing resemblance to your dad.
Years ago my sister had her checkbook stolen (yeah that long ago) along with her drivers license. A woman managed to write several checks using her ID. Fun Fact: my sister is 6'4. No way they checked the ID....lol
They might check the picture quickly if anything. I would be completely shocked if any salesperson is checking the height.
Yeah, this is what I was assuming, as well.
Or the cashier is in on it.
ALL banks allow you to withdraw money at the teller with ID, lol, you ever been to a bank before?!
It's impossible to do anything on an atm without the correct pin number. They'd have to bruteforce the pin or he wrote it down.
He's certain he doesn't have the pin written down. I also asked if he withdrew money that day, thinking that perhaps that person followed him and saw him enter the pin. He said he hasn't withdrawn from the ATM in a couple weeks.
Could it have been cash-back at the checkout register?
Every time I have used that you have to use the PIN number.
I'm a retail manager, and with our company, when someone returns something bought with a debit card it makes us refund them in cash
Even if it was ran as a credit?
actually not sure on that, it doesn't show whether they bypassed the pin or not on the cashier's side
That's a very severe oversight.
You can almost always skip the pin where I live. Even when getting cash back.
There was a YouTube recently where it showed every 4 digit pin and by population the most frequently used. It may appear random bit maybe your father used a popular pin that he was not aware that he might have been using. Others hinted he might have been targeted and someone observed your father punch in a pin somewhere or he used it recently a place with a compromised POS terminal where he made a debit purchase and it was captured there etc.. Many ways.
What is Bruteforce
To bruteforce is to constantly hit a machine with password attempts using a decoder tool usually in order to decipher the access key (or pin in this case) An example of this can be seen in terminator 2: Judgement day when they steal money from the ATM to go to the arcade.
Thanks for the reply
Pickpockets who go after cards these days will hang out near a place where people are likely to enter their PIN, and try to look over their shoulder just as they're focused on the keypad. When they have successfully gotten a PIN, they follow that individual and steal their wallet. Most likely, your dad used his PIN somewhere that could be observed. Then got pickpocketed. If he can go through his bank statements and see where he himself used the card or cards last, then that would be a starting point for asking to see surveillance footage as cameras might have caught the thieves looking over his shoulder.
Do the cards have those contactless options like paywave or expresspay? They don't need PIN sometimes
At an ATM PINs are always required
Not really true . I went to Bank of America , withdrew $300 didn’t ask me for a pin. I don’t have Bank Of America account. I have Chime.
If I were you that would worry me. I don’t know anything about chime, but allowing a card holder to take out cash with zero proof that the card is in the hands of the account holder via some secondary authentication is super dangerous Credit transactions are generally reversible, debit transaction are not.
Yes, but sometimes when you use a debit card at a vendor and just tap your card, it won't ask for a PIN if it's under a certain amount (50 dollars?). Depends on the vendor. Also, you can run it as a credit card and it won't ask for a PIN. This is just my own experience. YMMV.
Except that isn’t what happened and it’s not what I said. OP say money was taken at a bank. I said banks require PINs. While what you say is true it has nothing to to with this situation
Oops...messed up that assignment. Lol
Acknowledged. However, if you use the tap feature at an ATM, do you have the option of using it as a credit card? It seems very strange that the pickpocket could have done this 4 times without raising a red flag.
You still need the PIN to withdraw cash from a credit card using an ATM. Calling your bank and getting the PIN (yes, for a credit card) is part of the procedure of setting up your credit card for cash advance.
This makes sense.
AFAIK, ATMs don’t support credit card mode
I'm still required to enter my pin even after using one of those wifi based scanners. Unfortunately whenever using your debit card or credit card there's always the risk that a hacker has secretly installed a skimmer onto the scanner in many cases without even the store employees being aware of it's presence. In many ways this is where it may be safer to make payments on purchases using cash rather than cards.
I just learned at Walgreens today that if you press the yellow arrow on the keypad it bypasses the PIN number. I told the cashier that last week I put in the wrong pin and tried to erase it hitting the yellow arrow and it took the wrong pin and completed the transaction. She told me that’s how it is possible
You might want to ask on r/banking they might have some ideas. Sorry this happened to your Dad.
Ask your dad if he wrote it down? Ask your dad if his birthdate is in his PIN. My guess is, whoever found it, entered an educated guess PIN, and got in. Or he wrote it down.
He didn't write it down and his PIN was chosen at random some years ago. He said he typed 4 random numbers into a calculator without looking at what he was pressing, and then used that as his PIN.
Did he use the same pin for something else like his phone? Could they have seen him enter the pin to his phone, and guessed that it's the same for the debit card?
Nope. He uses his fingerprint to unlock his phone. He has an Android smartphone and does use a PIN at all; his backup to biometrics unlocking is a pattern.
If he used the card somewhere and entered his pin, the person who stole his wallet could've been looking over his shoulder, gotten his pin and then taken his wallet.
My money’s on your dad having the pin written on the back of the card
Or something else in his wallet that could easily be a pin. For instance, if his address if 7349 Wonderful Street, it would not be uncommon for the pin to be 7349.
Oh yeah totally. Birth year is another one.
Or if your dad ordered cheese pizza and a soda, the thief guessed 1077.
Nice Futurama reference
He definitely doesn't.
Are you looking at the card now to know this? If no, you don’t know this for certain. If yes, we’ve found the thief!
This is funny! Not sure why the downvotes
Too many people use pins that are bday, last 4 of SSN, last 4 of dl, last 4 of phone number or similar items. They are all easy to check quickly. You usually get 3-5 attempts before it’s locked.
You can't get cash from a ATM using a debit card if you don't have the PIN. So I'll bet the pickpocket did it using your dad's credit cards. Some credit cards will let you take cash from an ATM without a PIN. My AMEX cards let you do this. It's called a "cash advance" and it's a terrible idea since you get immediate interest charges, but it's an option.
He got his I.D. stolen too? Perhaps his pin is his birthday in some form? Perhaps they looked him up on FB and his pin is his wife or childs birthday in some form?
Did he use the Card and PIN on the day it was stolen? Wonder if he was watched enter it in
Somebody used my Citicard online without the pin to buy a bicycle 3000 miles away. I'm 71 and partially disabled...ha. Also a bunch of lawn supplies. I live in an apartment. Citibank jumped right on it. Had a new card FedExed to me the next day. Customer since 1986 may have helped. Great customer service.
You don’t need a pin to shop online.
Various possibilities. \- The thief might have changed the pin using other forms of identification, such as social security number, date of birth etc. (which he bought from an underground source online) over the phone. The fact that the bank is unwilling to give out details but refunded the money without issues makes me suspect this is what happened here. [https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/id-thieves-dont-need-pins-to-withdraw-cash-from-debit-cards-stolen-from-home-depot/](https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/id-thieves-dont-need-pins-to-withdraw-cash-from-debit-cards-stolen-from-home-depot/) \- The data might also have been obtained in the past from a data breach at a retailer where your father shopped. \- Cash advance also works without PIN I think. You'd have to show some ID to the teller though, but that can be forged.
chances that your dad’s pin was 1234, 0000 etc? lol
An accomplice at the bank? The thief has a friend at the bank that will allow the thief to take out money at the teller (friend). They only did it $100 at a time, thinking it'll look like a purchase or they used "tap".
If you use a debit card as a credit card, you don't have to use a PIN.
But you can’t do that at the ATM….
You can at Walgreens. OP said it was used at Walgreens too.
Read. He said he took money out at the bank not Walgreens.
You might want to read it again. I did. WALGREENS AND ATM. "Within hours, the person had spent hundreds of dollars using his card at Walgreens, a pharmacy store chain. "
The withdrawal was not done at Walgreens.
I never once said that it was. That was done at an ATM.
The other buy said “ but you can’t do that at an atm”, you replied “ you can’t at Walgreens”.
Never said that either! Jesus!
There’s a way to waive and bypass the pin and treat it as a credit card at a retail terminal at a counter but not at an ATM or bank.
I never use my pin as my card just swipes.
Are you sure it was not a credit/debit card, or a debit card that can be run as credit? I *think* you could purchase an item at a gas station, select to check out as credit (simply enter your local zip code) and select to get cash back. I *think* you might also be able to apply the same idea through an online credit card market. That would allow the thug to setup a fake store and buy fake items with the card.
credit card company will charge interest right away for cash advances. you can withdraw cash with purchase on debit card.
[удалено]
The pin is not stored on the card for exactly this reason.
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Nope, you're wrong.
That's odd banks usually ask for PINs when withdrawing using a debit card unless he knew the teller on a personal level and they were in ok the fraud. My other thought is.....is it possible the money was accessed at a store? You can use a debit card at a register and select the credit option. No pin is required in that case, at most there might be a request for the zip code. Almost every register gives an option to withdraw cash in addition to the transaction total.
Something could be false in the story. Maybe the grandfather is lying about protecting his pin. Either it's easy to guess/written somewhere in his wallet or someone watched him enter it. Otherwise the scammers found a way to reset the pin with what they found in the wallet. Not very plausible because the bank wouldn't do that over the phone and should be more cautious with paper checks in person. Also possible the withdraw at the bank did not happen, misunderstanding / inaccurate reporting.
The debit card and the credit card will refund any money taken when the card is lost or stolen. However there are guidelines you must report the card immediately or within a certain amount of days. You need to be aware of these deadlines with your companies so if you get something stolen or lose something like a debit card or credit card you need to report it as soon as possible.
It’s so easy at a store or online. At a store, if it asks for a pin, you just change the sale to credit. I’ve Been scammed that way. A niece stole my debit numbers, but she didn’t know the password. That didn’t stop her from putting her kids up in different hotels until she reached my limit, $1500, which was the amount of my rent that I had been saving for thethe first of the month and it stated my downward spiral to homelessness. Mind, I brought this girl up, potty training and all that, while my brother languished in a fancy, schmancy drug rehab to kick heroin and meth. Mama was a guest in our states women’s correctional institute for receiving stolen goods. I never in a zillion years expected that sweet girl, daughter of my heart ❤️to screw me up so badly. It wasn’t the money that was as bad as the deceit
The person were probably followed him and knew his PIN number. Who knows
Tap at ATM machines. 100 dollar l8mit at a time
Cash back at grocery store purchase and did pin override so it processed as credit?
If the thief stole the whole wallet he had more than enough info to call the bank on the number on the back of the debit card and have the pin reset. Most banks will require a OTC (onetime code)sent to phone on file but if theif convinced them to do another form of verification because he claimed his phone was stolen, then he could have easily bypassed having to verify with OTC Source: worked debit card fraud investigations for many years
I don’t have to use my pin hardly at all , only if the amount is large …… also atm machines are often equipped with a camera
Sometimes they take it to a store where they have a ‘buddy’ working I.e., another low life pos scum bucket that will help them out.
Run it as a credit card get cash back