Byline: Sara McConnell

Your bank or credit card statement shows that money has been withdrawn from your account with your card from a cashpoint machine. But you know you did not take it out. You have not written down your personal identification number (PIN), nor have you told anyone what it is.

So how could someone else have got into your account? Unfortunately, it is not that difficult. Your card could have been intercepted, or stolen, then copied and replaced, leaving you none the wiser. Your PIN number could have been intercepted in the post when it was on its way to you under separate cover from your card, or obtained from you without you realising it.

According to a book out this week, an estimated 100,000 people in Britain have had money taken out of their account through a ``phantom withdrawal''. In the book, Cheating at Cards, Bryan Clough, the author, says this includes 5,000 complaints to the banking ombudsman in the past seven years. Other people who could have complained did not, while others suffered problems before the ombudsman scheme started in 1986. Mr Clough claims that, according to the police, total losses from plastic card fraud in the UK are nearer Pounds 400 million than the Pounds 129 million reported by the Association for Payment Clearing Services last year.

Banks have traditionally been reluctant to admit that their systems can fail. Barclays, the biggest plastic card issuer, says: ``We have never said our systems are infallible. Our machinery can make mistakes. But we have an audit trail and we can track back and find...