Santander dispute, £3800 fraud, advice sought

frank888frank · 5 October 2013 at 2:25PM

i posted this elsewhere on mse http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4783211 The long and short of it is that my santander credit card was used without my knowledge to the tune of £3800 between two online gambling sites and western union. After investigation by santander they have decided the transactions are "genuine" and therefore holding me liable.

The fact that i have had accounts with the two gambling sites (although the accounts in questio were new accounts opened by whoever used my card) and that i have used my santander current account for online gambling seems to have been their deciding factor. Obviously i will be contesting the decision.

My primary question here is with regard to paying of the balance in the interim. The first i heard of my card being compromised was almost two weeks ago. These related to transactions made in august. I was phoned twice during the first week of the investigation by the collections dept. who rather sheepishly apologized after i queried why they were calling. I queried this with my santander fraud case manager, who to my surprise went on to say they actually advise customers to meet the payments until the investigation is concluded. Nevertheless i have not as yet made a payment. Now that this will be dragging on further, i.e. the next step to write in to escalate/ appeal, i am not sure if it would be prudent to meet the payments. I am loath to start paying santander back.

Does anyone have any advice in relation to paying/ not paying?

Any other advice is welcome too! I am now in a position of having to chase the merchants for information that santander (should) have but i believe because of policy cannot share.

jonesMUFCforever · 5 October 2013 at 7:21PM

If you do not agree with their final decision you have 2 choices - the ombudsman or sue them.

meer53 · 5 October 2013 at 7:26PM

Pay the minimum until it's sorted.

yangptangkipperbang · 5 October 2013 at 9:17PM

Don't pay anything ! The amount should be placed in "dispute" and removed from your statements until a satisfactory outcome is arrived at.

If you say that you did not make the payments it is up to them to PROVE that you did - just saying that they believe them to be "genuine" is not adequate.

Their argument is ludicrous - if my card is used fraudulently to buy petrol, groceries, holidays, etc, etc - does that mean because I have bought these items in the past that any "fraud" is down to me ??

Cobblers !

frank888frank · 5 October 2013 at 10:47PM

thanks guys for the responses, i will be looking into the freezing of the account next week so as not to incur any late fees/ interest (if that is possible or satander is willing) Other than that it seems a bit of a grey area unfortunately.

Satander's investigation seems to not have been as "thorough" as they made out. After contacting one of the merchants on friday, it appears that there is over £1800 still there (locked since the start of august) I contacted satander back and they were not aware - they said they would be calling back that merchant to find out etc. This is great news on my part but leaves me questioning what sort of investigation they carried out if they overlooked this. I have not been able to get much more information than that right now i..e. ip addresses - speaking to the companies is fine, getting someone from their fraud department to talk to me is proving a lot more dufficult (no sursprises there) with lot's of promises so far to call me back (both online gambling merchants) bearing little fruit.

I have started keeping a spreadsheet with all the contact i have made with both satander and the merchants...really quite a lot of work all in all

I believe i will finally be able to get the info from the two gambling sites regarding ip addresses and such - western union though who i did contact myself early on were no use and required the bank to contact them. I believe that satander are unwilling to share any of the info with me re where the transaction was sent etc which is a bit disingenuous.

vassa · 6 October 2013 at 8:41AM

What sort of gambling? If poker, the money will certainly have been 'dumped' to another player - easily trackable by the site.

Also you need to get them to access ip addresses, may prove it wasn't you unless the people in question were computer whizzes.

EDIT just read your second post. Tell the bank that if they're holding you liable you want proof that it was your ip address being used. If you can prove that you were in X place when the fraud was taking place at Y you will have it writtten off.

frank888frank · 6 October 2013 at 3:18PM

vassa wrote: »

What sort of gambling? If poker, the money will certainly have been 'dumped' to another player - easily trackable by the site.

Also you need to get them to access ip addresses, may prove it wasn't you unless the people in question were computer whizzes.

EDIT just read your second post. Tell the bank that if they're holding you liable you want proof that it was your ip address being used. If you can prove that you were in X place when the fraud was taking place at Y you will have it writtten off.

Writing on my phone so apologies for messy English !
I think all sports bets, possibly exclusively football...I agree poker would make more sense and was what I had hoped to find.

Still waiting on ip addresses and such, One merchant is proving difficult to contact (the fraud department) although I just have to be persistent. The other merchant had now told me the matter had been escalated and by Monday I will be able to get more info (it sounded like it hasn't been escalated already but who knows at the moment) I am eager to find out the up addresses I know santander gained this info although won't tell me .

I also am waiting on full account history times...I know going by the time of deposit I was at work on at least one occasion... I think a lot of bets were made although not sure if placed all a thanks for the above advise!

John1993_2 · 6 October 2013 at 7:22PM

frank888frank wrote: »

i posted this elsewhere on mse http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4783211 The long and short of it is that my santander credit card was used without my knowledge to the tune of £3800 between two online gambling sites and western union.

Just to be clear, do you know who used it, or is this full-on third-party fraud?

From what you've written so far it's not clear if, for example, your partner used your card without asking you.

frank888frank · 6 October 2013 at 9:53PM

John1993 wrote: »

Just to be clear, do you know who used it, or is this full-on third-party fraud?

From what you've written so far it's not clear if, for example, your partner used your card without asking you.

hi john, this is full on third party fraud to my knowledge . The card was last used in somerhing like june for £50 and previously in 2011 around berlin. It was not a card that really left the house. I am almost certain that the cleaners we employed were responsible. They were not from a company but had been recommended and visited fortnightly. We no longer use them (since july i think).

Slightly OT, but the email address used to set up both accounts seems to have been created in may 2013. Crudely, this is going by myself trying to get access to the yahoo email and seeing that the security question was last updated 3rd may. Not sure if that is correct. No other cards have been compromised but i will look into the issue of stolen identity soon.

bris · 7 October 2013 at 2:03AM

Just playing devils advocate, but can you imagine how many people blow their cards gambling ony for the reality and sheer stupidity of the situation kicks in when they sober up.

Yes it really happens and happens a lot, an awful lot to be precise.

Some people then report the fraud in the vain hope of getting it back.

The fact you used the sites in the past does got go well for your case, especially if all the security features were used, which they must have been to load the account in the first place.

[Deleted User] · 7 October 2013 at 9:18AM

Having read through the OPs previous thread on this issue I suspect that he will indeed be found liable for the debt. He does gamble and was gambling at the time of this fraud, he has previously opened accounts with both of the sites in question, the new accounts were created in his name and the western union transfer happened over a week after the gambling, which would look very much like someone was trying to fictionalise fraud.

What was the limit on the card? If the card limit is roughly what was spent and there are not a variety of failed transactions I will be very surprised if they do decide it's fraud. Anyone could use a VPN to alter the country of origin of their requests to the site, so even if they discover that the IP from where the transactions came does not match the same country as the OPs, that's easy to explain away.

Santander dispute, £3800 fraud, advice sought

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