Coming back from the most awesome Paso Huemul circuit we were a little tired, and went out for dinner. Upon time to pay, Maaike’s Debit card (which masquerades as a credit card while abroad) bounced. Hey ho, that’s life we thought, having had issues with Debit Cards while travelling.
Or so we thought.
A day later, after the bus back to El Calafate, Maaike tried to get cash out of an ATM, again, no joy. This was a little more worrying because the card had worked OK in ATMS.. mostly. Anyway, after that we went back to the campsite we were at to check the bank balance. $-6.73. What? Then saw a whole bunch of withdrawals on the 9th Feb. Upon closer inspection they were all from the Philippines, which was somewhat strange, seeing as we weren’t actually in the Philippines. They’d drained the account. $2,700. Somewhat annoying/terrifying/worrying.
We emailed the bank immediately of course, then tried to Skype. Internet kept dropping out, so eventually we decided to go to an actual real-life telephone and call out. It was expensive, but nicely reassuring to talk to the bank. They basically said “we’ll take care of it” and to email their fraud department (which we duly did).
Since then, being somewhat paranoid, I have reduced my credit limit on cards, and only put 1K or so in any accounts which are actually linked from anywhere. Exposure has been reduced. Maaike’s card has been cancelled (we have 5 more … we’ll be fine ;).
We’re not sure where they skimmed the card (and pin number – more worryingly). If you’re interested in this stuff, then the all about skimmers section on krebsonsecurity has a lot of interesting (and somewhat terrifying) info on it. It’s big business this stuff, and, frankly, impressive. I mean within days? they’d copied the details over to the Philippines and taken out almost 3K. Our bank refunded us the money the same day!, but someone is out of pocket. In a small way reminds me of the ladykillers. Worth a watch sometime :)
Remember kids, always cover your fingers when typing in your pin code, give the ATM a bash to see that nothing is obviously loose, and just hope they don’t have thermal sensing..
Myra
February 29, 2016 at 6:26 am
My credit card was scammed the day before I left NZ – they took a few thousand and BNZ cancelled my card. That stopped the fraud but wasn’t great for me as I needed a credit card! The bank were fantastic though and sent a replacement card to my hotel in Hawaii within a few days.
It’s a horrible thing to happen though.
Patrick
February 29, 2016 at 10:54 am
Yip, they do put things right pretty quickly… always good to have a few cards handy I guess!
Marcel
February 29, 2016 at 9:09 am
hey, thanks for sharing all the great photos! where are the next ones?
Patrick, I recently read about a book ‘Stille Orte’ which you may like:
https://www.google.com/search?q=stille+orte+marco+volken
Also, you may like the ‘Hyperlapse Mobile’ app from Microsoft research (record time lapse videos when walking).
Good luck with the credit cards!
Patrick
February 29, 2016 at 10:52 am
Oh cool – I’d seen some of the Hyperlapse video’s before – but I didn’t know they’d made an app for it! most cool.
I’ll look out for it ;)
Patrick
February 29, 2016 at 10:55 am
p.s. as for more photo’s , yip there’ll be some more in a while, but our hiking days are over for a while, so I suspect Huemul circuit will be the highlight for quite some time. Well, until we come knocking on your door looking for a via ferrata guide ;)
L
March 1, 2016 at 4:22 pm
I’m pretty sure my friend and I were subjected to the same scammers! It happened in the same time range. Out of curiosity – do you know where the card was skimmed? I’m guessing ours were in El Calafate, but it could have been Puerto Natales as well, or even Punta Arenas.
Patrick
March 1, 2016 at 11:48 pm
Hi Lina,
Sorry to hear that :( I hope your bank gets it sorted as quickly as ours did, and that you have spare cards etc.
To answer your question, no, we don’t really know where it happened. Definitely not El Chalten though as we didn’t use the ATM there. Thing is, they’d be moving the devices around all the time so it’s impossible really to know where it happened. Cover your fingers while typing in the pin & hope for the best I guess!
I hope you’re having great travels, despite the skimming.
L
March 2, 2016 at 12:58 am
Ah, thanks!
Yes, it got sorted out quickly for me, and my bank mailed a new card that I was able to pick up along the way. My friend’s bank couldn’t do that though, but she’s with her boyfriend who still has a working card. Turns out it’s good to have a bank with good customer service. :P
Patrick
March 2, 2016 at 3:08 am
p.s. I’ve updated my comment – it was El Chalten that we didn’t use the ATM.. so El Calafate is a definite possibility :)