DO YOU remember how safe your money or "in-store credit card" was before the advent of "plastic money"?

The "plastic money" that now allows us to buy almost everything by just swiping your card is becoming one of our worst nightmares. My father refused to use them. He could not appreciate the thought of depositing his money at a teller point and withdrawing it from a wall.

I had never been scammed before and last month the "cloners" got me. They swiped my Mr Price in-store card and left me indebted to the tune of R7000.

Firstly, this was an unsolicited service and their card gets activated on the day you choose to activate it.

My daughter loves clothing and after months of having the card, I decided to activate it. Hardly three months after activating the card, it was cloned.

I got a nasty surprise when I went to pay my monthly instalment last week. The store demanded 10percent of the amount used.

The cloners did this a day after my last purchase at Mr Price, Jabulani Mall, Soweto, in July. The fraudster hopped from store to store buying goods on my card.

I reported this to Mr Price's head office who "apologised for the inconvenience" and promised to prevent this from happening in future. Although Mr Price is investigating, they have not cleared the debt I acquired fraudulently.

This is not an isolated incident.

Simo Miya is also a victim. She claims her ATM card was cloned at one of First National Banks' machines. Miya, an FNB client, said she uses FNB's machines when withdrawing money to avoid unnecessary bank charges.

She said her misery started on July 23 after she had been to an FNB ATM machine at the mall. She says she withdrew R500 and gave it to her mother to buy a few things. While at Southgate, she withdrew a further R600 to pay off some of her debts.

"The next thing R1000 was withdrawn from my account at Maponya Mall while I was asleep at home. The first fraudulent withdrawal was made at 11:57pm," Miya said.

"A minute later a further R500 was withdrawn. After that money was withdrawn from my account at an alarming rate," Miya said.

She said just after midnight an additional R2850 was withdrawn, leaving her with a balance of R250.

On visiting her Vosloorus branch, she discovered that she now "owed the bank because she had overdrawn" money from her account, she said.

"Though I reported the fraudulent withdrawals, FNB keeps calling me to say bank charges are accumulating, instead of investigating my complaint," Miya said.

She said she has never before had a negative balance or withdrawn money in this fashion.

"The bank now tells me I owe more than R2000 when I am not at fault," a despondent Miya said.

Miya said FNB refunded some of her money but still charged R2200 of her refund.

"That is half of what was taken from me by these criminals. Now I'm being robbed blind by the bank," she said.

She also could not pay her car insurance because her debit order bounced.

FNB said they were investigating Miya's complaint and promised to comment by Monday but they had not done so at the time of going to print.