I've been cloned!

Or rather, my ATM card has been.

This is after my husband's ATM card was cloned a month ago.

It seems rather excessive to us (not to mention creepy and a bit scary.)

You have to understand that getting a bank account in Britain is one of the most bureaucratic processes around, especially for newcomers. First, to get a bank account you must have a home address. This is fine and dandy except when you are trying to rent or buy a home, which you can't do without a bank account. It's a situation Joseph Heller would be quite proud of.

We solved that one through the magic of corporate housing. But I feel for anyone who moves over without being on the company dime (or tuppence).

Next step: fill out the application for a bank account. You also need to have a lawyer testify in writing that he/she has examined your passports and that the copies you are sending with the application are, indeed, facsimiles of the actual thing. This is a problem if you don't happen to have a lawyer or two handy. Luckily, I work next door to one, so voila! Problem solved.

The application has to be mailed. No bringing it to a branch; must go through the post. And the reply? Also comes by post.

Off we sent our application. And after several weeks, a letter finally came informing us that we're now the proud co-owners of a British bank account. Would we like an ATM card? Then please, mail this card back. Oh, and the checks are being mailed under separate cover.

OK, when I put my husband on my bank account in California, we physically went to a local branch. We filled out some paperwork in the branch. We talked to the nice accounts officer who hit a few keys on her computer keypad, then stuck a blank ATM card in the card reader and had my husband punch in his PIN. We walked out of the branch with ATM card, checks, and joint account. We then went to his bank branch and repeated the process. Done in one day - oh, what a miracle it seems now!

Back to Britain. A week or so later, the checks arrive. Then, glorious day of days (because I was getting tired of all the conversion charges on my US account from using my US ATM card to withdraw cash) our British ATM cards arrived.

But no PIN.

We had to, yes, you guessed it, mail back a confirmation of card receipt slip (no calling an 800 number equivalent, no taking it to a branch for activation). Then, once the bank received our confirmation by post, and only then, would they mail us our PINs.

It's a painful process. P A I N F U L.

We received our PINS, changed them to something we would remember more easily, and life went on.

Then my husband's card was cloned. A few weeks later, mine was cloned.

Back in January, the government made a big fuss about "chip and PIN." All businesses are supposed to use, from the start of 2005, new technology that allows customers to "sign" for their credit/debit card purchases with their PIN. Big media campaigns told us to make sure all our credit cards have the requisite chip and to know our PIN.

It's August, and we're still being asked to sign for card purchases.

Merchants don't ask to see i.d. as there is no real government-issued standard. Many people don't drive in London so using drivers' licenses as ID is not really feasible. Passports are also not mandatory (although many more Brits than Americans have them). Tony Blair is trying to introduce a national ID card but that's a whole 'nother hot political potato. So when chip and PIN aren't used, merchants rely on checking the signature on the card with the signature on the slip.

Except, when, they don't.

Or when the card is cloned and the counterfeit card is signed with the counterfeit signature.

The most sophisticated card cloning technique is to surreptiously attach a card reader gizmo on an ATM machine. The user does his ATM banking as normal, but the gizmo captures the card number and PIN. A new card is then forged and before the owner of the bank account realizes it, the account is cleaned out.

Thankfully, we weren't the victim of that scam, although the ATM nearest to us did have a card reader gizmo attached to it some months ago. You can still see the holes where they drilled into the cash machine to attach the gizmo. No, our scam was a bit more pedestrian, and a lot more common.

A worker at some store we shopped at apparently copied down our card number and names, then used the information to create a new card. They didn't have access to our PIN, so they couldn't take cash out of our account. Instead, they used the clone card to make small purchases at supermarket-type stores, then asked for £50 cash back on top of the purchase. They would then repeat this at tens of stores a day, obviously knowing which clerks don't ask for chip and PIN.

On my husband's cloned card, they got £800. On mine, it's over £1000.

The bank caught on, in both cases, rather quickly and deactivated our cards. Unfortunately, I found out access was denied when I hit the sales to buy clothes for a business trip and my card was refused at the till. Oops.

The bank was very nice about the identity fraud and they reimbursed us for the stolen funds with expediency (the stores ultimately take the loss). However, this means we need new ATM cards.

They're coming.

In the post.