For many years banks and industry officials have warned consumers that they should always be careful about their bank and credit card details, and they should always avoid writing down their PIN, particularly if they then keep it close to their credit or debit cards. The reasons for this are pretty obvious – this is like handing your account details to thieves on a plate. All the thief needs to do is get hold of your wallet or purse, and he or she will find your plastic card and the all important code that will enable them to take money from your account.

However, many of us are guilty of doing this at some point or another, particularly in cases where we have more than one plastic card and are prone to forgetting the PIN for each card or getting them mixed up. However, as one recent incident shows the cost of keeping your PIN written down close to your card can be huge, and you may find that any losses that you experience will be attributed to your own lack of care for writing down your PIN and keeping it with your card.

One elderly woman recently explained how she had put aside thousands of pounds into her bank account in order to pay for her husband’s retirement home. Unfortunately she had her purse stolen with her bank cards in the purse when she went shopping one day. She did all the right things, informing the shopping centre authorities, the police, and of course her bank, who she assumed would cancel the cards. She had done one thing wrong, however, and this was to write her PIN down and keep it in her purse.

When she called the bank just an hour or two after the theft she was told a couple of hundred pounds had already been taken from the account, and she would not be entitled to get this back because she had written her PIN down. However, when she received her bank statement a couple of months on she realised that nearly £10,000 had now been taken from the savings fund. This was because the bank had not checked to see of there were any connected plastic cards, and therefore had not cancelled all of her cards.

This lady was lucky in that the bank made a blunder that resulted in them reimbursing her money. However, if you write down your PIN and the thief manages to clear your account before you have the chance to report the loss or theft in cases where the bank does not make this sort of mistake you could find that you cannot claim back the money. The woman in this case stated: ‘Like a lot of people, I find it very difficult to remember all the different numbers. So I wrote them down, but I disguised them as phone numbers. I thought that would be OK.’

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