Stolen credit card--Flim Flam scam

My wife says maybe the topic heading should be "Idiots who no longer have their credit card" !!

A man wanted to "help" us at a Montparnass ATM machine inside a bank last week. Instead we told him to go ahead of us and withdraw his own money. So he left. My husband could smell his con a mile away. He's a native French speaker. I might have been taken just like you if not for my husband. New lesson: privacy of inside areas can set you up for a con--no onger the safe haven compared to outside machines.

Edit: my very savvy French sister-in-law just told me how her card was stolen out of her pants pocket right in her own neighborhood in France, right after she had withdrawn money. You aren't alone. It can happen to anyone.

Thanks for posting this as a PSA, Skip.
It's not your fault there are crummy people out there. Sorry you got scammed and hope the damage (aside from your ego!) is minimal.

Bets, inside machines give a sense of privacy, but safest is to use an ATM during banking hours, at least for machine-eating-cards problems.

Thanks so much for posting this story. I'm sure I would have fallen for this too.

Ugh ugh ugh. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Kindly shared, thank you.

Very common story, especially in Southern France ;-( Sorry to hear about that. If it can help you feeling a bit better, rest assured that these bad guys will get caught soon.

I work with a lot of police officers who always tell me how these card stealers are the easiest to catch (since every ATM machine has a camera, they quickly identify who uses it).

Thanks Linda. Hope that these guys are breaking big rocks into little rocks soon!

I'm sorry this happened, and thank you for sharing--these things happen even to experienced travelers. It took me 3 trips abroad to finally feel ok about using my debit card to get cash--I planned my cash expenditures very carefully to avoid it, but my first trip to Hungary in 2014 I arrived at Keleti and needed cash (my bank didn't offer forints then but it does now) and thus braved the ATM and it was fine. After that my rule is to only use them at banks during business hours.

Doesn't surprise me James. There are good and bad people everywhere including right here at home.

Skip,

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. It sounds like you may have been just a bit complacent after 20-plus years of travelling and let your guard down at the wrong time. In any case, it's a valuable lesson, and I'm sure you won't do that again.

I have no tolerance for people trying to "help" me buy tickets or whatever. Some of them can be very persistent and if that's the case, I just grab my cards and walk away from the machine. I usually politely refuse a couple of times but if they persist, my usual response is "If I need help I'll ask for it, otherwise pi** off".

I always travel with at least two debit / ATM cards and at least two credit cards, so I never have to resort to cash advances.

Thanks to prior postings like yours, I was able to avoid a similar mistake at the Milan train station. I was in line to buy my ticket from a person at the ticket window when a man came up to me and asked me where I was going. He insisted it would be faster and easier to use the ticket machine and he was more than willing to help me. Fortunately, I had read on this forum about this and knew that he wasn't going to help me for nothing. Either he was going to ask me for money for his help or the ticket he was going to buy didn't cost what he said it did. I declined his services and after purchasing my ticket, I watched so many people take him up on his offer.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am sure you have already helped a number of people from being separated from their money.

Skip,

So sorry this happened to you...

When my daughter & I were visiting Chamonix in late May, I noticed a suspicious man staring at us as we approached an ATM.
Instead of using the ATM, I told my daughter about the suspicious man, & so we walked into a shop until the man left the area.
My daughter (a young adult), thought I was being paranoid, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Later on we found another ATM inside a different bank.

I have met a really paranoid person at an ATM - I was standing quite a bit behind her and she suddenly turned round and publicly accused me loudly of watching what she was doing. I pointed out that I was standing there inside the bank with my card in my hand and the only thing I was interested in was in her completing her transaction and not making wild accusations. I also advised here that if she was so worried about using an ATM with other people waiting she should use the counter instead.

I have also offered to help a number of people struggling to use ticket machines that are clearly unfamiliar to them. Not accepting such well-intended assistance is not helpful to the crowds waiting. Of course it makes good sense not to hand anyone your card, and I certainly don't ask for it. I have not yet had my offer declined either.

As mentioned above, don't beat yourself up on this. I almost had this sort of incident happen to me, experienced traveler as I am, a couple of years ago at Paris Nord. I was playing with the SNCF machine, mainly to get departure times from Paris to city A. This guy , a "helper" comes up behind me on my right shoulder, too close for comfort, yeah, the right flank, says something about helping. The immediate split second I was caught off guard, then abruptly said, NEIN, and just walked off to get on the staircase going up. I was absolutely rude...true. Then I thought to myself that was close before he had the chance to punch in the key pad. True, I never got my magnetic stripe credit card out. The SNCF ticket machine doesn't accept the US credit card anyway.

Update--At least the money part of it ended well. Got a VISA cash advance a day later in little town of Mausanne des Alpilles at post office and both bank BBT and VaiSA have full reimbursement policy for debit cash withdrawals. Bad Guys got 2000E in no time at all.

Skip,

Thanks for the update.

It's good to know that you were reimbursed by your bank.

Hopefully those bad guys will be caught.