Like many European countries, Australian banks issue debit and credit cards with a microchip that verifies the correct PIN has been entered. In Europe, the system is called EMV, or chip-and-PIN, while in Australia it is called EFTPOS. The U.S. doesn't yet have a chip-and-PIN system, but and plan to introduce one.

EFTPOS should have prevented the kind of fraud I experienced. When a criminal copies the information in a magnetic stripe, they can encode it into a dummy card. But cash machines are supposed to verify a microchip is present, and criminals aren't thought to have figured out how to copy microchips yet, though security researchers have in the EMV system.

The problem is, some cash machines still process transactions even if a card doesn't have the chip, allowing fraudsters to withdraw funds using cloned cards. Fixing the problem will require banks to upgrade all their ATMs, which takes time.

Skimming victims can sometimes prove to their banks that they didn't do a transaction. Cash cards contain an Application Transaction Counter (ATC), which records the number of times a card has been used. An ATC with one less transaction than was performed would presumably be evidence that a bank's customer wasn't lying about withdrawing money.

I offered my card to Commonwealth Bank for forensic analysis but they didn't get back to me. I also asked if they had checked the footage from security cameras where the withdrawal occurred, or if they had filed a police report, but I got no reply.