A WARNING of the dangers of cash card cloning was issued this week after fraudsters tried five times to take money from an Evesham man's account.

And unsuspecting Nigel Craddock knew nothing about it until fraud investigators from his bank called him at home to alert him to the problem.

"I was asked about recent transactions that were made from New Year's Eve onwards which only amounted to me using my card at Tesco in Worcester Road and Cheltenham Road petrol station," he said.

"I also used the card at Tesco just to view my balance and not make a withdrawal. I was informed by the fraud squad that five attempts were made on Sunday, January 1 at 10pm to unlawfully extract funds from my account with a suspected cloned card.

"I'm told that due to my card being of the chip and pin type, they were unsuccessful with their attempts."

A spokesman for Barclaycard said they could not discuss individual cases.

However, he added: "People need to be extra vigilant around automatic telling machines.

"There have been cases of people using a device which traps the card in the machine. When the victim goes to sort it out with his bank, the card is removed and there is no need to clone one. In other cases, pinhole cameras are used to clone the details of the card. All of Barclays ATMs are now equipped with new safety devices. If either a camera or a trapper is detected, the whole machine just closes down. It may be inconvenient for the customer, but it prevents the fraudsters getting away with their cash."

Police in Evesham have been warning of the dangers of cloning since a cloning machine was found on an ATM outside the Nationwide offices in High Street last year. They urged everyone using cash-dispensing machines to be more vigilant.