The danger lurking in your purse: Contactless credit cards
HAVING your purse stolen is traumatic. It’s just happened to me and I am astonished at how much can still be spent on your cards even after you have cancelled them. My purse was stolen in a local supermarket at 12.47pm — the female culprit was caught in the act on CCTV. I didn’t discover it had gone until I got to the till at 1.15pm. In that short time, the thief had driven to a garage and spent £70 on cigarettes and Jack Daniel’s at 1.01pm, £27 at the Co-op at 1.07pm and £78 at the Spar at 1.15pm. By 2pm I had cancelled all my cards, but apparently this doesn’t stop further transactions on contactless cards. In the following few days, my cancelled debit and credit cards were used, in transactions under £30 at a time, to buy nearly £200 worth of booze, cigarettes, a bus ticket and takeaway food from Greggs. I have spent many hours on the phone to the bank, police and the garage getting the details. I am disgusted that a thief is able to continue using my cards after they had been cancelled. Yes, I’ve had my money refunded by the bank, but that isn’t the point. The officer on my case has said contactless cards are a nightmare for the police force. So I asked the bank to issue my replacement debit card as a chip-andpIN one only, which it did. However, I was told I could not have a credit card without the contactless facility. Don’t the banks realise this new technology is weighing down the police, who have better things to do than trying to find someone with a Jack Daniel’s and a fag in one hand and a Greggs buttie in the other?
SUSaN HOWarD, High Peak, Derbys.