The dangers of writing down your credit card PIN number

By Reno Charlton
Staff Writer, 22 July 2008

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FOR many people, and in particular older people, it can be difficult to remember the PIN for a credit or debit card.

Many people have admitted to writing their PIN down, and this is something that many financial experts and banks have warned against, because it means that thieves can gain easier access to accounts in the event that the card is stolen.

More worryingly, some people write down their PIN and keep it in their purse or wallet along with their card, so if the purse or wallet is stolen the thief has no further work to do other than start taking out cash.

Writing down your PIN is dangerous

According to a recent report one elderly woman found out just how dangerous it can be to write down a PIN and keep it close to the card - and banks do not always succeed in protecting against this theft.

Eighty six year old Iris Evely recently had her purse stolen, which contained her cards and her PIN, which she had written down. Within two hours of the theft she had informed the police, as well as her bank, NatWest, she admitted that she had left the PIN written in her purse.

The bank informed her that £250 had already been taken from the account before she even reported the theft, and she would not be able to recover this money. Mrs Evely then assumed that the bank had cancelled the cards so that no further cash could be taken.

However, the bank only cancelled her current account card and failed to cancel her savings account card, which had the same PIN.

Two months later she received a statement and found that £9400 had been taken from her savings account. When she contacted the bank she was told that she would not get the money back because she had written her PIN down and left it with her cards.

Mrs Evely said: "It did not seem fair. I had told NatWest to cancel my cards. Did they not think it was a bit unusual for someone like me to take out such large amounts over so many days?"

Finally the bank did admit that the member of staff that dealt with the case had failed to check whether there were any connected cards that needed to be cancelled, and in the end repaid the customer all of the missing money.

However, the incident has highlighted how dangerous it can be to have your PIN written down and left close to your cards, as thieves could take a huge amount of cash out even before the theft is reported, and people may not be able to reclaim these losses.

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