Chip and pin fraud.

In message , Tim writes

So what?

Whether they are the conner, connee or the conned or none of these is irrelevant. They are the loser.

Thats life.

If negligence can be proven, then yes.

"john boyle" wrote

If Mr.Smith cons Mr.Jones out of 2,000, do you want Mrs.Brown pay for it?

"john boyle" wrote

Are you trying to say that you think it's legal for a bank to give away some cash to anybody (eg a thief), and deduct the amount from whoever's account balance they so decide? And the account holder who they happened to pick on, needs to just shrug their shoulders and accept it? :-(

"john boyle" wrote

Is that a legal argument? ;-(

FOS, surely ?

"Fergus O'Rourke" wrote

You should try FOS first -- and if you get not joy there *then* you go to court! ;-)

[FOS binding on the bank, but not the customer...]

They might have to, depending on the nature of the case: they have to provide all relevant information.

But the FOS is a much better route

In message , Tim writes

Of course not. I assume you mean

Robber = Smith

Jones = Bank Customer

Brown = Bank.

I cant think of a law that would be broken by a bank in these circumstances. Which one were you thinking about?

In court, the 'victim' would be the account holder.

Is 'why should they lose out' a legal question?

Have you any authority for this odd view, John ?

I couldn't see the FOS taking that line seriously.

(uk.legal added)

"john boyle" wrote

No, you've already said yourself (above) "the bank were conned into it" - that makes Mr.Jones = Bank. Mrs.Brown is the Bank Customer (account holder).

"john boyle" wrote

Either breach of contract, theft, or fraud?

If banks could do this legally, we'd see them all simply transfering every customer's balance to the bank manager's accounts and saying "ah, that's life - now go away!"

"john boyle" wrote

Yes, the victim of the bank reducing their account's balance without authority.

Are you suggesting that

1. The banks are "right" to do so, or simply have the Might ?
2. Such action would survive a complaint to the FOS or court ?

Bitstring , from the wonderful person Tim said

No, and I wouldn't bank with anyone who only wanted 3 characters from an alphameric password either. (Can you actually name one that is that lax).

In message , GSV Three Minds in a Can writes

If the alphanumeric password is Beef48 and you get asked randmonly for different combinations of 3 letters from the whole word, what is so insecure with that?

In message , Tim writes

Thats not illegal.

How have the bank been guilty of theft?

Ditto.

Youve lost any sense of logic there. If it was the bank alone who effected the transfer then the bank would be guilty of theft. If an outsider conned the bank into doing it then the 'victim' would be the account holder form whom the dosh was transferred. The 'thieft' would have stolen form the account holders bank account. If the bank were negligent then they could be guilty of conversion, but that isnt a crime, it would be settled in tort.

No, possibly the victim of the banks negligence resulting in a civil suit for conversion, but the criminal offence is that the account holder was the victim.

In message , Fergus O'Rourke writes

A not insubstantial number of actual criminal cases in which I was directly involved.

It wouldnt get that far. This thread is confusing civil liability (which could be the banks fault for enabling the theft) and the criminal act of theft.

Bitstring , from the wonderful person john boyle said

There are only 36*36*36 possible answers. It gets better if you have to first give them an obscure bit of family history and a pet's name and then remember your 17 digit customer number....

: > Yes you can, the original signed slip wont have your fingerprints on it. : : It also won't have the thief's fingerprints either, if (s)he wore gloves for : instance. : : Anyway, after you or the thief hand it over, it will be handled by many : other people - the cashier, whoever transfers the slips from the till to the : office, etc etc. How likely is it that any fingerprint from the person who : signed it, even if initially on the slip, is still there when the : police/court come to look at it at least several days later? : I was listening to an interview, a couple of weeks back, of an official working to identify UK victims of the Boxing Day tsunami. One of the methods used was to collect fingerprints from passport application forms of those believed to be dead. However a CC slip, being so much smaller, would stand a greater risk of overlapping prints.

A couple of years ago our local Total garage had notices up the said they were introducing a system with a thumbprint reader for CC/DC transactions. It never appeared.

On the surface this would appear to be a good solution.

1) You put your C&P card into the reader. 2) Verify the amount. 3) Put your finger(s) onto the scanner of the new design pads to get a fingerprint scan. 4) Enter your pin. 5) The terminal verifies the PIN and authorises the transaction in the normal way. 6) You take your card, slip, goods etc. 7) The terminal stores an encrypted copy of your fingerprints against that transaction.

Should you question a transaction your fingerprint scan can be compared to the one stored for the transaction.

Problems I can see.

1) People! 2) The encryption would probably have to be one way. It would probably be a violation of the fraudsters human rights if his fingerprint was stored electronically at the time of the crime. I am not sure how easy it would be to compare one way encrypted fingerprints. Not as straight forward as numbers. 3) A new type of fraud could emerge. i.e. I give you my card and PIN. You get/spend the money which we share. I prove it wasn't me and get a refund. 4) Who would pay? We like "free" banking, and why should the banks pay when it does not benefit them? C&P as it is solves most of their problems (or outsources them to the customer).

"john boyle" wrote

This is the point in question. There are two parts to consider :-

(A) When the thief walked up to the ATM, stealing *cash* from the ATM, surely they stole it from the bank which owned 'the ATM & the *cash* inside it'? The *cash* didn't belong to the account holder, so it can't be considered as being stolen from him/her.

(B) At about the same time as (or sometime after) the theft from the ATM, the bank then reduces the balance on the account in the account holder's name. The account holder has not authorised any such transaction (it was not them at the ATM, and they did not even know the thief was stealing the money, and had absolutely no part in the theft whatsoever).

It wasn't the 'thief' that changed the balance on the account holder's a/c (at A above) - it was the bank (at B above).

"john boyle" wrote

Look at part (B) above. Only the bank involved there.

"john boyle" wrote

Ermmm - isn't that up to the account holder?

If the account holder has been through all the standard complaints procedures with the bank but with no joy, then the bank can't *stop* them going to FOS, now can they?

In message , Tim writes

My direct experience of such cases does not concur with your view.

Ownership of the actual notes is not the point in question. The thief performed a transaction on the clients account.

In message , Tim writes

You are confusing two points.

The first regards the criminal offence of theft in which the victim is the customer.

The second point about the bank being negligent.

In my responses throughout I am referring to the most common form of card misuse which is a stolen card and a revealed pin, or a cloned card with a revealed pin. IN the vast majority of cases there is no doubt or dispute about the client not being at fault. If the ATM card is nicked and then used the victim is the client, in the same way as a forged signature or a fraudulently negotiated cheque. The 'charge sheet' will show the customer.

The banks liability to the client is a separate matter.