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Published: June 12th 2008
(Day 69 on the road)Great, I just found out that someone must have used a fake copy of my credit card to make cash-withdrawals in Moscow the previous two days! I have left Moscow about a month ago and have the credit card here with me, so I am assuming they must have copied my data and produced a new, fake credit card somehow. But how they got hold of my card-number and PIN, which I have neither told anyone nor written down anywhere, remains a mystery to me.
All in all, there were numerous withdrawals, totaling about 1900 Euro! I have now canceled the credit card, but my bank could not assure me that I will get my money back, which seems up to Visa to decide. It will also take them three (!) weeks to issue a replacement card. All in all, this is just perfect... :-(
Epilogue: The money was finally refunded to me about two months later, and I was very happy that the money was not gone. What I still don't understand however is that Visa's security checks did not pick this fraud up. With so many different withdrawals totaling such a large amount of money in a very short time (over the course of two days), surly the pattern is very different to my usual withdrawal habit? Also, I made cash withdrawals with my real credit card in Mongolia almost at the same time as these fake withdrawals took place in Moscow, so that would have required me to be in two far apart places at the same time. Surely one of these discrepancies or a combination of these two should have alarmed Visa to the misuse? Strange...
To view my photos, have a look at
pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete
book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).
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Daniel
non-member comment
Shit, but ...
it's only money! But still, very annoying indeed. Try to see the positive experience of the trip. Of course, this might sound odd, but in a few years time back in Germany you will answer this mishap with a smile. P.S.: And think of all the savings not playing golf this year ;-)