Hundreds of motorists have been caught out by a credit card cloning scam after filling up with fuel at a petrol station in Lincolnshire.

Fraudsters drilled a hole in the ceiling above the filling station’s chip-and-PIN machine and filmed customers keying in their numbers. The fraudsters then produced replica credit cards that they sent to criminal associates around the world.

Within hours of customers using their credit cards to make payments at the garage near a roundabout on the A46 in Lincoln, the replica cards were being used fraudulently in locations such as India and Dubai. More than 200 motorists have had hundreds of pounds taken from their bank accounts. It is expected many more victims of the fraud will come forward as they check their statements.

Graham Jennings, 43, from Lincoln, who lost almost £300, said: “I bought petrol at the garage last Thursday. Three days later I got a call from the bank asking me if I’d been to India and bought anything in the last day. I could not believe it.”

Six staff at a car repair workshop around the corner from the garage also fell victim. A receptionist, Jess Wholey, 18, was among them. “I went to my bank as I found I could not take any money out at a cashpoint,” she said. “Money had been withdrawn in Hong Kong until it reached my overdraft limit, so they could not take out any more.”

Tim Pye, a spokesman for HSBC, said: “These networks are sophisticated. They target vendors like petrol stations where security is lower than places like supermarkets. In terms of security, the best thing to do is completely cover the chip-and-PIN machine when you put your number in.”

Detective Constable Nicola Hurt, of Lincoln CID, who is investigating the crimes, said: “We started to receive calls from people earlier this week who had just started getting their bills and statements through the post and the numbers have just been increasing day by day. We have had more than 200 bank and credit cards compromised in this way.” Officers found a small hole that had been drilled in the ceiling above the chip-and-PIN machine at the filling station. It is thought this was where the gang placed a camera to record customers entering their numbers.

Police say that the staff at the garage are not thought to be involved.

Ms Hurt added: “As general advice, we would ask people to always cover up the machine when entering their PIN in any shop, so that no one can see it. Also, don’t let your card out of sight at all and if it is swiped into two machines, then question this to find out why.

“One machine is all that’s needed. Don’t risk details from your card being skimmed and used to take money from your account.”

Police are investigating a similar scam in Houghton on the Hill in Leicestershire, where a fake card reader was put into the village shop and filling station.

Virtually every household in the “village of the scammed”, which has a population of 1,500, was affected, with some people losing thousands of pounds.

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