Thanks all, for your time in answering over the new year break!
Firstly, fender62: Thanks, I knew all those thiings, and I've never allowed myself to be taken in by any of these scams. My approach has always been to view all messages as possible traps - read them carefully, note anything which doesn't look right, and delete where appropriate. The ones purporting to be from PayPal are the worst, but they're easy to spot - full of typos and spelling errors, poor layout, and garbage that you know PayPal would never do. Just copy and send them to
[email protected], and they'll always sort it out.
derek-33: I did inform my bank, and they were very helpful, even though it was an absolute pain to have no card and no way of making online purchases all through Christmas. Then to have to re-enter card details on all the sites I usually use (although most of them use PayPal anyway, so it's not so bad).
And as for your second message, I'd thought of that, and bought a pack of these on Amazon as soon as my new card arrived:
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation
The card doesn't fit inside them, as they're not a pocket like the ones you suggested. You just place them next to the card inside your wallet. I thought a pocket-type would be a little inconvenient, as I'm often carrying a large amount of stuff, as well as a cat in a shoulder carrier, and it can be hard enough getting the wallet out of my jacket pocket to place the freedom pass on the barrier reader, without having to fiddle around with extricating a small sheath from the card holder!
Jonathan-Joe: I'll definitely get on to TfL and ask them about that, just as soon as the work schedule gets back to normal after the 2-week holiday! It seems you may be correct about having set up an account using my details, as there were further TfL debits to my account after the bank had stopped my card.
wolf63: You thought of your answer just on the strength of reading the question title, didn't you!! Every night, when I go to bed, I always tell the cat 'I'm going to sheep now'. Seems appropriate!
Thanks again, everybody.
Terry (and Sindy Flagtail)