Overclockers - possible card misuse

hesjane · 10 April 2007 at 12:50PM

Hi all

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but felt that anyone looking for techie stuff would check here and this is a warning.

My brother checked his bank account online this morning and it has been cleared of funds. It appears, after talking to his bank, that his debit card has been used at Overclockers for purchases he did not make. To clarify, he made a small purchase from this company a short while ago, received the goods and thought no more about it - until this morning.

The bank are now investigating, but it appears that the most likely scenario is that a member of Overclockers staff has used the details he provided to them for a genuine purchase.

Please note I am not accusing an member of Overclockers staff - merely stating this appears to the most likely scenario. Another one is that Overclockers have had their database or whatever it is hacked and information stolen. As I said, the bank are investigating. Whatever has happened, the erroneous debit has definitely been traced to Overclockers. The bank has advised my brother that the investigation will take up to 15 weeks!!!!

So please be aware when using cards/internet that this is an issue that is being looked into.

My family has often used Overclockers in the past with no problems and excellent customer service and delivery times etc. I generally have no hesitation in recommending Overclockers to anyone, but just wanted to warn others of this potential problem.

If this post is in the wrong place, mods please feel free to move it

chilli_dog · 10 April 2007 at 1:31PM

Wow,

I have used overclockers a bit but living around the corner from them i have always paid cash or swiped my card instore.

Have you got the police involved?

Are the bank giving your brother a overdraft facility while they check this out?

Donnie · 10 April 2007 at 1:42PM

An argument for always paying via credit card online.

f1charlie · 10 April 2007 at 1:50PM

Sounds a familiar tale - look at the recent posts regarding Shopneo.

Millionare · 10 April 2007 at 2:02PM

Chip and Pin system introduced here has reduced card fraud by approx 50% but quite a few countries abroad dont have it.

"Card not present" and "Abroad card use" is growing due to the this as the fraudsters target this use of cards.

Expect to hear more increases in this type of fraud.

hesjane · 10 April 2007 at 3:38PM

f1charlie wrote: »

Sounds a familiar tale - look at the recent posts regarding Shopneo.

I was already aware of the Shopneo threads. I was hesitant to post about this as I don't want to damage Overclockers reputation in any way - as I said the family has used them often and always been pleased with the service, quality, delivery etc. etc.

To be honest, I don't know if the police are involved - the bank are handling everything.

Regarding the overdraft - my brother has just transferred money from his savings whilst it is being dealt with so he was lucky enough to be in a position not to need that option.

Unfortunately, as far as I am aware, he doesn't use a credit card (doesn't have one) and uses his debit card. I assume it would have been a cardholder not present type transaction. I questioned how they could do it if the cardholder was not present then the goods would have to have been delivered and I was surprised that they could deliver to an address which is not the registered cardholder address.

trets77 · 10 April 2007 at 5:19PM

why have they not refunded his money .??????

I got got caught in the huge DVD Pacific scam and had £140 removed from my bank account by a Bogus dutch e-mail account provider. someone hacked their entire customer database and card details as i recall.. it was refunded as soon as i reported it as a fraud transaction i did not carry out.

this thread on AV forums will give you a good idea of what happened
http://www.avforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-142625.html

After this i now only buy online with my £300 limit ( at my request) HSBC credit card . like previous post says you will be better protected with a Credit card.

on a slightly different note but also a anthor good reason to use credit card was the splash dvd mess of a few years back. this was a two bit outfit based in the Isle of White who popped up on my fav price search engine https://www.dvdvpricecheck.com. ( pretty sure they were called splash but don,t quote me)

Prices were always just a reasonable cut below the cheapest main supplier in the searches , so i though i would give them a go and ordered Kill Bill . my wife also ordered something.

top and tail of it they were a mickey mouse outfit, who had no stock , took months to deliver anything (if at all) , took payment straight away, and only had a Premiuim rate phone number you could quite easily spend a few hours on hold on to call, the bad reviews of the company appeared on dvdpricechecks user rating like a Tsunmai. too late for me..... my £12 was taken without hestitation but i never got my dvd or a refund , before the company filed for Bankrupt protection. the website was replaced by a note from the Liquidators saying that the chances of getting your DVD or money back were now effictivley nil.

at this point i called my credit card company and was refunded within 2 days, my wife waited 8 months for a refund from her bank after a lot of complaining
apprently the Credit card and debit card companys had begun withholding payments to said rogues . but Barclays played dumb to this and tried to keep my wife's money ( BIG SURPRISE !! the way Barclays conduct Buisness and treat customers !!! and anthor nail in their coffin when we kicked them and their sorry bank account out the door !!)

get a low limit credit card is my advice.

x64_86 · 28 February 2008 at 7:35PM

I know this thread is kind of old but I thought it was important to reply as I have something quite serious to add to the discussion (Infact I just signed up to post this message).

In December of 2007 I attempted to make a purchase with Overclockers.co.uk It went through fine however..

About 11 minutes after I completed my order my Bank called me and informed me that they were withholding on the Overclockers.co.uk payment because of a lot of card fraud surrounding this site. She said she could allow the payment if it was me who made it. I said yes it was me and she allowed the payment to go through and I received my items problem free.

Now remember that was in December 2007. Now yesterday I attempted to make another purchase from overclockers.co.uk (27th February 2008) this time the payment would not go through. It said on the site that the card issuer (my bank) denied the payment request and that I should contact my Bank.

I didn't need to though because about 3 minutes after the purchase failed to process my bank called me. They told me that they no longer allow any of there customers to make any purchases with overclockers.co.uk because they believe someone at Overclockers is cloning cards and or making payments with the credit information they have from there customers including money transfers.

I was quite shocked as I have been a loyal customer with overclockers.co.uk since 2004 and I've spent a lot of money there I purchased practically all my Computer equipment with them. I said to my bank, is there no way they would allow the transfer? And the woman said no they will not allow any payments to there online store under any circumstances as not only is all the fraud happening, overclockers.co.uk have not been returning money and the bank has been unable to get anything back from them. I asked how many customers this had effected she wouldn't disclose that information but she did say "Enough to warrant the denial of all payments to the company".

She advised me to ring them on the Phone and make a payment that way, I thought, sounds a bit risky if there is fraud going on there wouldn't it be just as dangerous to hand my information over to a real person on a phone line. To this she said she personally wouldn't make a payment to a company that is under investigation for fraud and she only suggested it because I mentioned I had been given a Discount which ran out on the 29th of February which I wanted to take advantage of.

So basically I just thought I would add a warning to this thread (I found it via Google when typing in Overclockers and Card Fraud). Stay safe all.

superscaper · 28 February 2008 at 7:39PM

Could I ask which bank you're with out of interest? Might save people the hassle of finding out the hard way if they have the same bank. I'm quite shocked about this although I haven't used overclockers in quite a long time (well at least since I get free postage at Scan).

x64_86 · 28 February 2008 at 7:40PM

Alliance & Leicester

Ebany · 28 February 2008 at 7:54PM

Whenever I try to use my M&S card with them I get denied first, then a call, and then it is allowed. I haven't tried recently though so I don't know if they have taken the same deny everything approach. They have told me the same thing in the past, that there is a big fraud problem with Overclockers.

Overclockers - possible card misuse

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