Feb 27, 2008 6:58 pm US/Eastern
HSBC Bank Customers Hit By Electronic Thief
Victim: Someone In Calif. Stole $2,800 From Her Account
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Emily Fischthal closed her bank account at HSBC Bank on Wednesday, saying an electronic thief got to her money a week and a half ago.
CBS
A New Yorker claims a thief cleared out her bank account from across the country, and she's not the only fraud victim.
Emily Fischthal closed her bank account at HSBC Bank on Wednesday, saying an electronic thief got to her money a week and a half ago.
"Someone made ATM withdrawals in California in varying amounts of $100, $800, $500, all over the weekend," she told CBS 2 HD.
Fischthal said a total of $2,800 was withdrawn from her account by someone in California, while she was making nearly simultaneous withdrawals in New York, which she says, for the bank, should have been a red flag.
"They somehow had a duplicate of the card and pin. I had my card, because it was in my wallet the whole time. No one else has it," she said.
How widespread is the fraud? Apparently it's enough for there to be complaints from other customers on a Web site.
On Consumerist.com, there's an article called "HSBC Won't Tell You Someone In Bulgaria Is Stealing $2,000 From You." Fischthal said it's happened to two of her friends who bank at HSBC. She said a bank representative in Buffalo told her they'd had many complaints.
"It's been a nightmare. [I've had] A week of uncertainty and am having to live off of $200 they happened not to get to," she said.
A spokeswoman for HSBC acknowledged "a theft of card payment data" and said the bank is re-issuing 6,000 ATM/debit cards as a precautionary measure to those who have been impacted.
Fischthal's advice: if you're a customer, check your account every day to make sure the withdrawals are yours.
The bank says it is ensuring "zero liability" for its customers who have been defrauded and said there is no evidence to suggest HSBC or other card issuers were responsible for the security breach.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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