I’m no less immune to becoming a victim of financial fraud than anyone else. Sadly over the Bank Holiday weekend someone managed to use my credit card to make a rather expensive purchase from a well-known high-end airline – for a sum approaching £4,000. Care with your personal banking is something I have often written and talked about, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I noticed this pretty quickly and immediately informed my Bank (NatWest) that this wasn’t my purchase and was in fact a case of financial fraud – or theft as I prefer to call it. Thankfully the team at NatWest could quickly identify that this was a case of fraud (the name of the purchaser was evident to them in this instance – which was odd I thought). Anyway my account was corrected on the same day. Full marks to NatWest who have now improved my sentiment towards them for doing what in theory they promise to do anyway. My own cynicism and the experience that others have reported to me has generally left me suspicious that action in such circumstances could be as swift or helpful. I am delighted that my experience of NatWest was rather different and very helpful indeed. Sure I have had to cancel my card, which will probably create a few practical hiccoughs over the next month or so, but this is the price that I pay for proper protection. Thanks NatWest, a job well done.

How did it happen? well only really three possible options – either my card had been cloned via some terminal (which I doubt as I check these things carefully) or it had been seen by a criminal (also highly unlikely) or a website that I used it for was severely compromised. This seems to most likely explanation to me, as I had a poor experience with one site in particular – which whilst a “decent” organisation, have a really rubbish payment system. A lesson learned to back off as soon as I become suspicious of such a site again.

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