Last night I checked out my bank statement online. On Friday of last week a ?399 transaction was made in payment to BT Cellnet/Internet.
My mobile is a vodafone one, and although my internet service is provided by BT it costs ?385 a month less than the amount withdrawn. So I called BT this morning, then BT internet – both of whom denied taking the money from my account. So I called my bank and asked them to investigate the transaction.
At just after four pm they called me back and explained that my details had been used to purchase a couple of mobile phones from a BT Cellnet shop in Leeds.
I have never been to Leeds and I was freaked at this point.
Turns out that something in my rubbish was used – like a bill or a statement that has accidentally been thrown out. The fraudster called the shop and arranged payment over the phone, then turned up with the bill on them to prove their identity when they collected the purchase.
Pick holes in this plot if you like, but that’s the way my bank pieced it together.
Aside from being quite a cool crime, it’s something that could have gone undetected for almost a month if I did not have internet banking set up.
So, just to let you know, this is obviously a new-ish type of crime… get shredding your paper rubbish.
