Thieves drained my bank account of £21k after I made common mistake on night out – how to avoid it happening to you

JAMES O’Sullivan considers himself an optimist – but his positive spirit was tested when his bank account was drained of £21k after making an easy mistake on a night out.

On St Patrick’s Day last year, the technology entrepreneur had been enjoying drinks with friends in Dublin after watching England’s defeat to Ireland in the Six Nations Rugby tournament.

James had just bought a drink at the bar and was in good spirits – but after returning to his pals, he realised his phone was missing.

Naively, the sports fan had kept his phone in his trouser pocket and while he initially thought he had dropped it, in reality it had been swiped by a thief – incredibly easy to do in a crowded room.

James shrugged off the loss, feeling comforted that he had Face ID set up on his iPhone, so no one would be able to access his personal information or the bank accounts.

But unfortunately, he couldn’t have been more wrong as the fraudsters had been watching him, which meant they knew his pin and were able to drain £21,000 of his savings.

‘A wave of fear washed over me’

Because he didn’t think his phone was at risk of being hacked, James was fairly relaxed at first.

He asked staff at the bar about his phone and they said it wasn’t uncommon for phones to be found when they were cleaning up at the end of the night, so told him to come back in the morning.

But panic started to set in when he arrived the next morning and his phone hadn’t been handed in.

James had a number of cards in his Apple wallet on his phone – 10 in total – along with other apps for investments and social media.

While he thought his phone was safe, he still had a gut feeling he should get his accounts frozen.

He tried to log into his iCloud account but couldn’t get access, so he used his wife’s phone to start calling banks to cancel all his cards.

“I had to prioritise which one I went to first as it was slow process,” he said.

“I had to call them because without your phone, you can’t login online to cancel or request a new card, and when you do get through, authentication is harder because they can’t send a code to your phone.”

Then, about 45 mins after he began freezing his cards, James received an email from one bank saying it had refused a transaction on his card at a shop in Dublin city centre.

That was when James knew his phone had been stolen, and realised that the thieves had somehow got into it and already started spending his cash.

“Only one bank contacted me by email when something unusual happened – without this email, I probably wouldn’t have known of the theft for a while longer,” James said.

“It was only then that I knew my phone had been stolen and not lost, and a whole new wave of fear washed over me.”

It turned out the thieves had been watching him throughout the night until they saw him type in his pin code, which they were later able to use to get into his phone.

James spent hours in total calling each bank and investment firm to freeze his cards.

“It took me about six hours to cancel everything. It was so stressful, as I knew while I was freezing card number two, card number eight was still active and [the criminals] can still spend that money.”

Before James was able to cancel all his accounts, the thieves managed to spend a whopping €25,000 (£21,000) across his nine bank cards, mostly buying lavish new tech.

Luckily, James and his wife had some savings elsewhere which they could survive on while they waited to get the stolen money back – but this took more than three weeks.

New beginnings

Sitting on the plane en route to a stag do a few months later, James was mulling over what happened to him and had a light bulb moment.

The 44-year-old decided to take matters into his own hands and develop a business to streamline the process of cancelling bank cards on your phone.

James, who has a background in software, came up with the idea for his app, Nuke for Orbit, and quickly wrote up a plan.

The service, which is set to launch later this year, will allow subscribers to block access to multiple services and accounts all at once, meaning they are far less likely to lose money if their phone is stolen.

You can do this via someone else’s device if they have downloaded the app.

“We have the fully featured app and we’re in the middle of working with banks, financial providers, and social media companies to have them work with us,” James explained.

When the product launches, it will be free for the first year of use, but after that James said he will aim to keep charges for users under £10.

James said he expects to attract over one million users in the first year after launch.

“If we can get the mobile phone networks and banks to suggest this to their customers, and it’s free, it will protect their customers and their own assets,” he said.

How to protect yourself

The thief who stole James’ phone was never caught, but he is confident that his business will help prevent this happening to others.

“Everything that banks do is based on their interpretation of things, so they have their models that guess when something is fraud – but it is only a guess, at best.

“What [Nuke from Orbit] would allow them to do is show the bank the person who says their phone is stolen.”

However, it’s important to take measures to protect yourself from your phone being stolen in the first place.

It’s a good idea to keep your phone in a secure place, such as a zipped bag, to prevent opportunistic thieves from taking it without you realising.

And be careful to always hide your phone when entering your pin in public, so anyone lurking can’t spot it.

The City of London Police recommends using a strong PIN or password to avoid it being repeated easily.

It says you can also track your phone down if it’s stolen with its IMEI number.

“Get your phone’s IMEI number by typing *#06# on your phone keypad,” it said.

“Keep a note of it somewhere other than on your phone. The IMEI can help track the phone down if it’s lost or stolen.”