Phantom Withdrawals
- By Matt Stephens
- October 21, 2005
A chilling story of phantoms and rogues in the UK banking industry was recently revealed, centering around the relative ease with which moderately tech-savvy thieving ragamuffins could make “phantom ATM withdrawals” from unsuspecting victims’ accounts.
According to this website, a phantom withdrawal is: “a cash withdrawal from an ATM where money has been withdrawn, and neither the customer nor the bank admit liability.”
Although phantom withdrawals were reportedly rife in the early 1990s, the story has only now come to light with the introduction of secure Chip and Pin cards. Now that Chip and Pin cards are in widespread use in the UK, the risk of such frauds is much reduced; so apparently it's now safe to tell us just how much risk our money was in.
Full story here.