h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But if you pay for something online, Gnomon, or set up a Direct Debit to a charity, you don't need to give your PIN number to authorise it. The bank clearly does not accept responsibility, and neither does he expect them to, as he says:

"I opened my bank statement this morning to find out that someone has set up a direct debit which automatically takes £500 from my account," he said.

"The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again.

"I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake."

And as for it 'not being his fault', I think if you publish your bank details in a national newspaper and give easy clues as to your address, I hardly think you can blame the bank. I wouldn't suggest everyone be paranoid, but putting your bank details in the public domain is clearly a bloody stupid idea.

even if the bank is liable - how many people wouldn't notice until something really important hadn't been paid? it's a few days at least of worry that all your money has gone.

The DD guarantee only covers errors by the bank or the person calling for the money - not fraud. While they do say they'll cover any losses through stolen cards etc, in this case he published his details which we are told not even to put in the rubbish bin unshredded, so I doubt he'd have the cheek to try to claim it off his bank or back from the charity.

This is nonsense, and Clarkson's original point stands: this information is not secret or confidential, it's written on every cheque in my chequebook, which I may use to pay any Tom, Dick or Harry.

If the banking system allows any TDH with this easily available info to set up a DD from my account without consulting me, and won't repay the money, the banking system is broken. If I were Clarkson, I'd get my money back or close the account, and say so in next week's column.

Zube

Your address isn't printed on your cheques, is it? I would have thought you'd only need address, account details and some form of ID - reasonably easy to fake over the phone, I suppose, which is, I would imagine, how this direct debit was set up. After all, if you want to set up a direct debit with a company, that's all you need, isn't it?

Addresses are printed on American cheques, and some people have their driving licence number on theirs.

Why would you have your driving license number on a cheque?

Because most cheque guarantor companies require proof of identification when accepting a cheque. The most common form of photo ID in the US is a driving license or state-issued non-driving ID. Since most Americans are lazy, they get tired of people asking them to pull their ID's out of their wallets so they just have the number printed on the cheques. Also, since again, we're lazy, many cashiers won't ask to actually see the ID if the number's right there.

We were able to swipe a customer's driving licence through the credit card machine. That automatically contacted a third party company whose computer checked its records and sent us back a code within five seconds or so. We would either accept or refuse the cheque depending on that code.

If you have my name and bank sort-code, you can look up my address in the phonebook.

Zube

We have magnetic strips on the backs of our licenses, but I've never seen them used for anything, not even by the DMV.

Now you know what they're for