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Comment by greenyoda | Hacker News Reader

He says they cloned his card, so they probably either had a card skimmer installed on top of the ATM's card slot or a tiny hidden camera to photograph the card. Now they have his name and account number. They then followed him home to get his address. Then they looked him up in the phone directory to get his land-line number.

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That's not what the article said. It said that the initial fraudulent call claimed that they had cloned it.

Getting a name and phone number is easy. After you've followed the person home, poke through their waste paper bin until you find a letter/bill with the info. If the person is listed in the phonebook (often the default) then you just need the surname from the bin and the town/village of the house you're stood in front of.

Date of birth would be a bit harder to get. Not on the average bill or in a phone book. I guess someone could go through social media once they had your name, but it might not work for everyone.

I'm in the US. Online, I've obtained birth and death dates and lists of mailing addresses of specific persons. In one case, I started with the subject's name and county where they died (the goal was to find the burial plot of a relative). Other cases I started with a name and current city of residence (ie, googling myself and family members). I didn't search social networks. Iirc, most of my success came from online county records.

That doesn't match what the article said. Also, if they already had his card then there would be no need to send a courier to his place and pick it up, that only increases their exposure and the risk of getting caught.

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