A car break-in has highlighted a loophole after a March carpenter was robbed of work tools and a bank card that was later used to go on a mini spending spree.
Andrew Stockbridge only discovered his card had been used on a motorway 200 miles away when he asked his bank for a transactions report. “The purchases must have been made in the middle of the night before the card was cancelled,” he said.
“As long as the payment is less than £20 then it goes through,” he said.
“With contactless payments there is no record of the time it went through.”
As soon as he realised his card had been stolen, Mr Stockbridge called his bank at 8.30am on Wednesday.
But today he checked and found the thieves had used the card for £11.54 and £12.74 at two outlets on a motorway services station.
His Peugeot 106 was broken into in the middle of the night on Tuesday when it was parked outside a friend’s flat at Morton Court off Station Road, March.
He has since asked various people locally with their own CCTV to look at movements in and around the area at the time.
He sent out a plea: “Come on people, let’s pull together and get these scumbags.”
Mr Stockbridge believes, from neighbours, that the tools were stolen around 3am and that possibly two vehicles were involved.
“All the equipment was marked up with my name and initials or engraved with my name and address,” he said.
“No one in town is going to buy any of them - everyone knows me so it will have to be offered for sale elsewhere.”
Police have carried out forensic tests on the car and are talking with officials from his bank.
Anyone with information should call 101.
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