Banks are warning shoppers to be careful using cash points in town after a number of cash cards have been cloned.

Reports of unauthorised card transactions came to light after cardholders found money taken from their bank accounts after using cash machines in Monmouth, Caldicot and Coleford.

A man found all of the money had been taken out of his current account after using a cash machine, or ATM (Automated Teller machine) in Monmouth.

Duane Jeffries posted a warning on social media after his card was cloned and found that his card had been used in London.

He said : “I always use the post office after that lady got her card cloned at Waitrose, but the person who cloned my card has been using it in London today and the bank advised me not to use any cashpoint in Monmouth at the moment.”

Another, Sally Taylor said that the bank advised her to not use any cashpoint in Monmouth “they said use the post office”.

In Caldicot- the bank alerted the owner of the card after “unusual” transactions had been noticed.

It's not the first instance of card cloning, in 2024, Christine Edwards’ mum had her card cloned after using another ATM at the bottom of town.

The card was later used to purchase items in Pinner, London. Following an investigation by the bank, the money was returned.

The banks advise to use your branch cashpoint, especially the inside ones, or get cash from post offices. If you use contactless card, reduce the amount.

Card cloning is a type of fraud in which information on a card used for a transaction is covertly and illegally duplicated. Basically, it’s a process thieves use to copy the information on a transaction card without stealing the physical card itself.

This information is then copied onto a new or reformatted card, allowing criminals to use it to make fraudulent purchases or gain unauthorized access to a person’s accounts.‍

The most widespread version is credit card cloning, though debit card cloning is also common. Any type of card that can be used to authorize a payment or account access – even a gift card – could be a target for card cloning.

Payment cards that have a magnetic strip that runs along the back are being phased out and replaced with EMV (Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) microchips embedded in the card.

It encrypts each transaction made with the card and makes it difficult to access the actual authorization information.

However, thieves have developed devices called “shimmers” that operate in much the same way as skimmers, but work on cards with EMV chips. They have also figured out how to transfer the digital information on an EMV chip to an analog magnetic strip. This effectively clones the card while bypassing the security provided by the EMV chip.

The newest payment cards are equipped with radio frequency identification technology (RFID). This allows them to transmit transaction information to a card reader simply by being nearby, without physically inserting the card in a slot.