They got me!

I had hoped to have something more fun to report after my blog free days:

I headed out for some lunch on Saturday but stopped off at the bank for some cash.

Each bank with ATM's has a vestibule where you swipe your card to get entry to a "secure" area. I have done this many times with no problem.

There were two well dressed guys just ahead of me but there were 3 machines in this Bank of Chile branch on Providencia (nice road in a nice part of town) so I followed them in. They went to the machines on the left and right leaving me the middle machine.

I put in my card and tapped in the code (covering my hand as I did so). Just then I got a tap on my left shoulder. He said something and pointed to the ground behind me. I turned round to see 4 or 5 peso notes scattered on the floor. I shrugged my shoulders and said they are not mine but he spoke again and sort of "beckoned me to pick them up". I said "not mine" and turned around. I looked at the machine and the screen was back to the "home" page but no card in the slot!


Whilst I was turned around and distracted by his mate the guy to my right must have pressed the cancel button and retrieved my card from the machine.

All this happened in less than 1 minute!

It takes a while to sink in that your card is not coming out and that it has been taken. The guys left the bank sharpish and despite running out in to the street they were nowhere to be seen.

I was bloody cross, ran back to the apartment (2 minutes away) and got the Internet up. I transferred my current account balance in to a savings account to stop them accessing my funds and then called the bank.

I was thinking that they were stupid and had timed their intervention badly as I had not got to the point of requesting the cash. They wouldn't have any cash and they wouldn't have seen my number.

Of course calling the bank from a UK mobile phone on "pay as you go" (for emergencies only as I cancelled my contract) burns up credit at a rate of knots!

I got through and cancelled the card, then the phone ran out of credit! The card I have registered to top up, is the card I have just had stolen and cancelled!

Takes a while to top up card with another card and get hold of the bank again.

The card had been used 7 times in the short time they had it and somehow they got £500 out! So who was stupid now?! They obviously know to get the card before you get cash so that they can maximise the amount they can get out.

How they did that I do not know! I covered my hand when entering the numbers but what's more - whenever I have tried to get cash out it only lets me have about £200 a day (over here).

Once I had stopped the card, I asked some people where the nearest police station is, feeling I ought to report the crime. No one seemed to know where it was and I ended up with a small group discussing the issue with great passion and arms flailing in every direction! Eventually I got a fairly clear indication that there was one 3 or 4 kms away but it was Saturday and probably not open until Monday! Great.

It is bloody annoying as having to organise a card and get it to Santiago will take over a week. I will also have to deal with the banks fraud department on my return to the UK to get the money back!

As annoyed as I was, I have to be impressed by the slick operators. A bit like the guys in Buenos Aires who got Dan's phone - they are experts.

I am really careful with cards and cash in the open but you get lulled in to a false sense of security on the bank premises. In future I will only use the single machine booths or make a judgement about who/how many people are in the larger ones!


Bastards!

I think I will take a few days off to cheer myself up.............now where to go in this part of the world at this time of year?