UAE banks hit by wave of card fraud

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FRAUD WARNING: HSBC said UAE banks have been hit by a wave of ATM card fraud. (Getty Images - Picture for illustrative purposes only)

UAE banks have been hit by a wave of ATM card fraud, with criminal gangs using counterfeit cards to access local accounts from abroad, HSBC said on Tuesday.

The lender said it has refunded the "small number" of its customers have been affected and warned others to change their PIN numbers as a precaution, without giving further details about the fraud.

"Together with other UAE-based banks, we have been experiencing an attack on our local accounts from counterfeit ATM card usage abroad," Jonathan Campbell-James, regional head of security and fraud risk at HSBC Middle East, said in a statement.

"We have been pro-actively communicating to our customers via SMS to change their PIN numbers at any HSBC ATM as a precaution, and have implemented various containment strategies to minimize the threat posed."

HSBC warned customers to be wary when using ATM machines as criminal gangs can place a false card reader on the entry slot of an ATM and a micro-camera above the ATM to read the PIN as it is input.

The information can then be used to manufacture counterfeit cards, known as card skimming.

Card fraud is becoming a growing problem in the UAE, with several high-profile cases coming to light this year.

A six-man gang was jailed in March for forging dozens of credit cards and stealing more than $250,000.

The same month the UAE central bank announced that the card details of potentially thousands of residents were stolen by a gang of fraudsters who hacked into a bank's ATM machine.

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