My Capital One "Bike" card has been 'cloned' again. 3rd time in a year. However this time someone has started ordering numerous mobile phones online to be posted to ME at MY home address.

First I knew of it was a call from Capital One saying "did I order a phone from Carphone Warehouse" – they were suspicious. No I said – so they've closed the account and will send a new card.

This morning I get a text and email (to my correct number and email address) from e2save.com saying they needed further details before they'd post out my new phones.

I called them this morning and they had my correct name, email address, home address and current mobile number (I didnt give them any details apart from their order number). They were going to despatch the phones to my home address.

Now I live in a bungalow – main door – and dont share mailboxes with anyone eles etc. Only other person in the house is my wife and she never uses my card nor wants a new phone.

So why would anyone order mobile phones to send to my address? Should I be worried?

And how does someone keep getting my card details?

ps the card is mainly used for bike stuff and regualar payments for broadband, o2 and reputable companies.

spy in the system.is your computer fully secure?

I've got Vista, AVG anti-virus, windwos defender and a firewall.

who would deliver these phones – royal mail?

have you been getting all your credit card bills ok?

is it one of your schizophrenic personnalities?

is avg updated daily?like mcfee and norton.

Their website says delivery via DHL. I've been getting my statements fine (not opened or anything) and havent had any problems with the mail to date.

AVG is updated daily. But I'm almost conviced it's not my PC as I use another card way more (flights, online groceries, presents,…) and never have a problem with it. This is my 'hobby' card (mainly bike related) so I can keep track of spending.

If I was schizophrenic wouldn't there be another post complaining that "my" mobiles hadnt turned up yet?

I had a similar incident last year. The word was that it was likely that someone at CPW's call centre may have been using or selling the credit card details. This was never proved, but I don't use a card in there now.

I've never bought anything from CPW but I guess it sounds plausible that it could be someone at an call centre / IT centre for one of my regular payments.

I'm still scratching my head though on why the phones were going to be delivered to me?

The theiving little gits do low level purchases to check the details they have bought. There is no doubt a list on scammers sites listing soft touch companies. If it goes through unnoticed then they'll go on a spree buying stuff to sell.

The theiving little gits do low level purchases to check the details they have bought.

Thanks Wooliferkins: that makes sense!

I believe I've figured out what company it was that's stealing my details! I'll drop an email to Capital One. Fortunatly it's not bike related.

My detective work is based on having separate email addresses for different hobbies that feed into a combined mailbox. The affected email address is pretty new and theres only one company in there that was used previously.

Interesting reading this,ive just found out exactly the same thing has happened to me.Trying to put an order with crc and my card kept being declined so i phoned the bank.Turns out someone been trying to order mobile phones with my card but fortunatley they cancelled the card which is great service i think.i only use this card fo bike purchases too and i cant fathom where my details were stolen from.

The mobile phone thing happened to me earlier this year, phones from Vodafone for delivery to my home address. having got onto it double quick I found out what the standard practice is. Dont worry they dont hang around at your home.
In my case and I assume its the same as with all these scams is that when they arrive at the delivery depot, they rang up the depot and said that they wouldnt be available at home to accept the parcel and could they possibly pick up from the depot. Needless to say I managed to inform both Vodafone who in turn informed the DPD delivery depot not to release the phones.
Would you believe that I then informed the police about it, and essentially gave them an credit card fraudster on a plate, by explaining everything that had happened and that all they needed to do was get an officer down to the local DPD depot to arrest whoever collected the phones for involvement in fairly serious credit card fraud. True to form the police said that they couldnt do anything about it based on my information, would not send anyone and would have to let the fraudster turn up at the depot to receive the stolen goods uninhibited, be told that he couldnt have the parcel and allow him to walk out on his merry way without any inconvinience, which is exactly what happened apparently !……..Nice huh ?

I had a letter from a credit card comp thanking me for opening an acc with them, rang them up said its a fraud, the weirdest thing is that the fraudesters used a photocopy of my passport as proof of id, but i left the uk in april to move to the usa and the only people with copies of my passport are various gov agencys

The Banking rules changed 18 months ago.
In essence you can only get an incident number from Plod.
They can't act on your instructions.
It has to be the bank's instruction that they can act upon and they don't act on small scale fraud.
= huge increase in low level fraud.

The bottom line is that you should use 1x CC for bike bits etc, 1 CC for other things and so on and so on.

With a CC you are covered in law.
However, make the purchase on a Debit card and it's entirely up to the Bank as to whether you get your money back.

I know all this both as it happened to me 3 times and there was an excellent article last year on Money Box about just this. A crime prevention officer from Letchworth was interviewed, he used to have 1000+ CC / DC fraud cases each year to follow up and try and solve. In the 3 months since the law changed, & as the banks aren't interested he'd had zero cases to deal with.

Hugh – next time it happens, take along a mate and a baseball bat and either follow the fraudster home or sort him out when he tries to leave the depot (quietly, in an alley, making no reference to how you know who he is).

I used to work for The Halifax investigating fraud and O2 Carphone Warehouse came up a lot. What they'll do is, if you've been abroad and used a dodgy machine or if you've been to an asian motor garage where they've got cameras up OR if someone's swiped your card TWICE, this is a way for them to get your card and pin details and they can then make a clone. Once they've made the clone they will then test it with a small amount (usually a pound or less). If that goes through then they will order a load of stuff.

what could be happening is that they're ordering stuff to your house to make it look as though it's you who is doing the buying, that way they could be trying to discredit you with the bank so that eventually they won't be so quick to stop the fraudulent activity.

Hugh – next time it happens, take along a mate and a baseball bat and either follow the fraudster home or sort him out when he tries to leave the depot (quietly, in an alley, making no reference to how you know who he is).

I wouldn't do this if i were you unless you wanted to do time for assault.

What you might have to do is keep a close eye on your account statements and look out for very small "tester" transactions. They could be as small as 1p. If you notice one of these you must tell your bank ASAP. also make sure that whenever you use your pin, wherever it is, cover it with your hand because if it's a valid chip and pin transaction the bank will not refund your account.

It might also be worth asking your bank if closing your account and opening a new one would be worth doing, especially if you're getting repeated attacks on different card numbers.

. also make sure that whenever you use your pin, wherever it is, cover it with your hand because if it's a valid chip and pin transaction the bank will not refund your account.

My card [a clone of it] was used at an ATM in Croatia to withdraw money, so I would guess that they had a PIN?
This card had never been used anywhere but online so the PIN had never been used – how did they do that?

The bank refunded me within the week

Good advice Bomberman, I have been done 3 times now, albeit once was about 3 years ago, but twice this year so far, I doubt that would be classed as a pattern yet, but I will watch it.
Each time the fraud has taken place online, which begs the question as to how they get hold of the three digit security code on the back of the card, which is always required to make an online purchase.

When you say to be aware of motor garages ? by this do you mean petrol stations ? Is this a regular outlet for fraudsters.

I personally would never take vigilanty action, but I would have no moral objection to it, its the very least these scumbags deserve. Especially when the police are so inept.
Maybe I am too old school in my opinions, maybe I am naive or look at things too simplistically, but I cannot see why there is beurocracy that dictates that the law is not interested in catching people who are stealing hard earned money from decent innocent people and then additionally using this to steal high value goods from honest businesses,
but they are very interested and prepared to prosecute a 50 year old woman who puts her seatbelt on 50 yards after leaving her driveway.
I know there are rules and regulations about the whys and wherefores, but it all seems to lack a shred of common sense to me