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A blog by Frank Adey

Sunday, 23 May 2010

20WV/39513A/10


The number above is a police crime number. The victim of the crime was me.
It happened yesterday afternoon. I had stopped at an ATM (above) to withdraw a tenner. No sooner had I finished pressing the buttons than a Middle-Eastern type pushed in front of me, obscuring the screen with a couple of printed forms.
"Don't use this one!" he shouted. "Broken down! Use next one!" And then he was gone.
After a second the machine disgorged a ten pound note. It looked like the stranger was wrong.So I waited for my debit card to be returned.
And waited.
No card!
Fortunately the bank involved was open, with a skeleton staff on duty to answer queries. I explained that the cash machine had apparently retained my card. The guy on duty very obligingly opened the machine, and produced two debit cards which had been retained. Neither of them was mine. It was then that I realised that I had been suckered. The supposedly interested party who had created the fuss outside had watched me key my pin number in, and then, under cover of his pieces of paper, grabbed my card as it was ejected. By the time I rang my bank from my mobile to cancel the card - only ten minutes later - my Middle-Eastern friend had already withdrawn £200 from my account.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon in the police station, waiting for someone to take my statement. They told me, in passing, that I was the second one that day to be scammed in that fashion.
I'll be watching out for that one next time. I hope that you will be too.

2 comments:

  1. C'mon, Frank. This racism must stop. Instead of "Middle-Eastern type", you're supposed to say "Oriental".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nickie, I suspect you're on the Western side of the pond - over here, "Oriental" means Chinese or Japanese. Anyone from the Indian subcontinent is "Asian".

    ReplyDelete

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