A elderly resident recently found out, at her own expense, how easy it is for criminals to clear out your bank account.

The story relates to an incident at the ATM machine at a local supermarket. Alongside the ATM is a notice stating both in English and Afrikaans:

* Be attentive when using this ATM

* Keep your PIN secret

* Stand close to the ATM

* Do not let anyone distract you

* Beware of card swopping

This, however, did not help the elderly victim much, as the notice fails to specify how one is to be aware of card-swopping.

Ms Peta Jones tells the story:

“My mother recently found out to her cost - and the cost of others, too, since she cannot now afford any increase in wages or conditions for the people she employs. She thought her card was just suffering from a magnetic fault when the machine would not accept it. When she eventually had the stamina (being 88-years-old) to face the queues in ABSA, she was told that the card was not hers at all, and that meanwhile her own card had been used to clean out her account both by means of ATMs and by being used as a debit card. This means that whoever took her card had also acquired her PIN number, although the bank was not able to say how this had been done.”

Ms Jones says the bank was, however, able to tell her mother how her card had been ‘swopped’ and that it is a pity that this is not generally known. Apparently the criminal contrives to leave a card inside the machine. When the next person comes, that person’s own card functions normally enough, but the card that the machine returns at the end is not the functioning card, but the one that was in there first. The criminal need then only press ‘cancel’ to get the functioning card out, and, somehow armed with its PIN number, merrily go away and spend the money in the account.

Ms Jones says the bank told her mother how to avoid this in future. They said that a person should always press ‘cancel’ before using their own card.