A MOTHER and son are facing a bleak Christmas after fraudsters cleaned out their bank accounts.

Single mother Julie Millard, 42, and her 19-year-old son Simon, have been told that they are unlikely to get the £1,140 refunded by their bank until the new year.

They believe the conmen got their card details by using a cloning device on a cash machine at Tesco in Cowley.

Mrs Millard said: "When I found out I just burst into tears - I couldn't believe it, and then my son checked his account and they had cleared his wages out. He has got £7 to his name."

Mrs Millard, a bookbinder who lives in Bayswater Road, Oxford, with Simon and his 16-year-old brother Adam, said Christmas was going to be tough.

She said: "Both of us are pretty poor. Luckily I had been out and bought all the presents, but we have nothing else and my son has got nothing to live on.

"My sister is coming down in the evening and I have got to put food on for her, so it is going to be quite difficult."

The money was taken from both their accounts during a series of transactions from a cash machine in Mill Hill, north London, over the weekend. Thames Valley Police are investigating.

Mrs Millard last used her card and Simon's at a machine at Tesco's supermarket in Cowley Retail Park on Wednesday, hiding the pin number with her hand as she typed it in.

She said: "I just really want to warn other people not to use them. It is not the first time that these cash machines have been targeted."

Tesco Personal Finance, which operates the machines, fitted anti-skimming devices in May after a spate of card cloning was reported.

Spokesman Matthew Dransfield said: "We are spending £3m across the chain to combat card crime and beat the skimmers. We are not going to put equipment in that isn't going to do the job."

Mrs Millard said the only other machine both cards had been used at was the Midcounties Co-op supermarket in Cowley Centre a fortnight ago.

Spokesman Adrian Barradell said staff at Cowley had not had any reports of problems with the machine outside the store, which is not maintained by them.

But he added: "Someone will be checking it to make sure everything is in order."