For some considerable time I had been happy with my Banco Popular Maestro card which enabled me to draw cash from the ATM and pay for goods if I chose to by entering my pin number to confirm the transaction.
I think it was in January that I was told at the bank that this was now out of date and I would be far more secure if I updated to their Visa debit card. Apart from this meaning that I had to revert to signing the 'billy do' that came out of the machine when my card authorised, I felt it was secure as most places checked my debit card against my cedula. In my home country (UK), they used to check that the signatures matched too, i.e. the one on the back of the debit card and the one on the 'billy do' being signed but obviously that wasn't relevant here as it was just the account number written in the strip on the back of the card where the signature 'would have been'.
Somehow, and I have no idea how, having not been out to use my card at all, I discovered transactions (5 of them) which had taken place and were definitely not mine. As it happens I drew cash from the ATM outside Banco Popular on Monday, 26/8/2013 but, on checking my account online on Thursday, I found the rogue transactions which had all taken place in stores (not at ATM's). Three were at Playero, Sosua which I had not visited, two at Burger King in POP and another at a Farmarcia and even one at Janet's, Cabarete which I visit regularly but would never pay for the RD$ 325 with a debit card!
An immediate visit to Banco Popular on Thursday revealed that my debit card had indeed been used at Janet's and the signature on the 'billy do' was nothing like mine.... although the card has been stopped pending investigation I see that a further amount of RD$ 4106 (as yet with no details) has appeared on my online account today. The total stolen from me at the moment is just over RD$ 16K leaving me rather short of available pesos but thank goodness there was not more in that account right now.
Sorry to have made this a long post but hopefully it is a warning to others that it is not just international debit and credit cards that are being 'cloned' at the moment.
I hope and trust Banco Popular will sort this problem for me asap.
I think it was in January that I was told at the bank that this was now out of date and I would be far more secure if I updated to their Visa debit card. Apart from this meaning that I had to revert to signing the 'billy do' that came out of the machine when my card authorised, I felt it was secure as most places checked my debit card against my cedula. In my home country (UK), they used to check that the signatures matched too, i.e. the one on the back of the debit card and the one on the 'billy do' being signed but obviously that wasn't relevant here as it was just the account number written in the strip on the back of the card where the signature 'would have been'.
Somehow, and I have no idea how, having not been out to use my card at all, I discovered transactions (5 of them) which had taken place and were definitely not mine. As it happens I drew cash from the ATM outside Banco Popular on Monday, 26/8/2013 but, on checking my account online on Thursday, I found the rogue transactions which had all taken place in stores (not at ATM's). Three were at Playero, Sosua which I had not visited, two at Burger King in POP and another at a Farmarcia and even one at Janet's, Cabarete which I visit regularly but would never pay for the RD$ 325 with a debit card!
An immediate visit to Banco Popular on Thursday revealed that my debit card had indeed been used at Janet's and the signature on the 'billy do' was nothing like mine.... although the card has been stopped pending investigation I see that a further amount of RD$ 4106 (as yet with no details) has appeared on my online account today. The total stolen from me at the moment is just over RD$ 16K leaving me rather short of available pesos but thank goodness there was not more in that account right now.
Sorry to have made this a long post but hopefully it is a warning to others that it is not just international debit and credit cards that are being 'cloned' at the moment.
I hope and trust Banco Popular will sort this problem for me asap.