My Credit Card chip has been cloned,Help!!

luvagoose

My Husbands Chip and pin credit card HAS been cloned. the original credit card was safe and sound at home in our possesion while fraudsters took £1,700 in four seperate transactions over two weeks from Barclays bank ATM machines (In Cambridgeshire @ Gamlingay). the credit card company say their equipment shows the original card was used, as the machine read the embedded chip as "original." Neither my self or my husband used the card. He has never given the card or the pin to anybody. We can prove where we were at the time of the transactions.When asked by ourselves to show us their evidence and proof, (as we are not thieves or liars) they ignored the question and stated,

"It is important to understand that to hold a customer liable for the transactions MBNA does not need to Prove who carried them out, as it is not uncommen for members of the public to allow other family members, or even trusted friends, occasional access to their accounts, even though this is in direct contravention of the terms and conditions of the card issue"

As I said earlier, the original card was at home, my husband was in another part of the country at the time of the transactions. My friends and family would not have had any idea where the card was kept or the pin number..

But I have read the. banking code, it clearly states Section 12, subsection 12.12 "Unless we can show that you acted fraudulently or without reasonable care, your liability for the card being missused will be limited as follows -: if someone else uses your card details without your permission and your card has not been lost or stolen you will not have to pay anything. (So they do have to PROVE it was us )

They have also stated
" They are not aware of any successful card chip cloning within the banking industry. Therefore we are confident in saying that the original card was used.".

To say, just because they are not aware of it does not mean it hasnt happened.We know it has happened to us and to Alain Job who is in the process of taking Halifax to court., and no doubt to many others who have just given up and paid..
. Nothing is infallible, chip and pin included. The banking and credit card industry do not want to admit that cloning an embedded chip is possible even though it is staring them in the face.If they did, they stand to lose millions of pounds and the confidence of the public
.Although IF, the credit card company are correct and the chip cannot be cloned then the only explanation is that the magnetic strip was cloned and the ATM machine misread the card as original and/or the ATM machine did not communicate electronically with the bank. All the transactions took place outside banking hours. But according to the banking system the ATM machines do not make mistakes!!!

.My husband and myself are fighting this as we are totaly innocent . If any body else on this forum has had the same thing happen to them please let me know.
Also any advice from members on how best to fight this would be much appreciated..We feel that we are David fighting Goliath (the big bully wearing white shirt and tie!!)

jonesMUFCforever

You need not worry - they do have to prove it was you.
The most you are liable for under the law is £50.

luvagoose

I wish it were that simple. They have sent us a letter very discretly saying that myself or my husband are guilty of fraud, have to pay the £1,700 and the matter is closed.. They have stated that they will not enter into anymore correspondance. that the letter is their final response, and go to Financial Ombudsman if not happy. (and we all know just how not independent they are). The point that makes our case different from others is that we had the original card in our possesion while money was taken from an ATM (cashpoint) machine( that suposedly read the chip) in this country. using according to MBNA the original. . But one embedded chip and pin card cannot be in two places at once. and according to the banking industry it is impossible to clone the chip.

NickX

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

You need not worry - they do have to prove it was you. The most you are liable for under the law is £50.

Correct, but MBNA do not appear to be adhering to the Banking Code.

They need to be reminded of their responsibilities to their customers, but I can appreciate it is not fair on the OP and is something of a David and Goliath situation.

My advice would be to be ascertive and don't let MBNA get away with shirking their responsbilities. Raise your complaint to the highest level, and if you do not get satisfaction then go to the Financial Ombudsman.

Good Luck and keep us posted.

NickX

luvagoose wrote: »

They have sent us a letter very discretly saying that myself or my husband are guilty of fraud

Well I think you will have to go to the Financial Ombudsman in the first instance.

However, if you are not satisfied, then there is always the option to take independent legal action against MBNA.

If they have accused you of fraud, then you may have a case for "defamation of character" aswell.

luvagoose

Thanks for that, I am going to continue to write (harrass!!) them, and if i can find the name/address of the chief exec i shall be writing to him. our other options were to go public with this and /or go to Watchdog. but im hoping it wont get that far.

bert&ernie

This is a difficult one. The MBNA position is that they don't need to prove who made the transaction - all they need to prove is that the chip and PIN were verified at the time of the transaction. They will say that this in turn proves that your either made the transaction yourself or provided the means for someone else to do it.

Their position is somewhat understandable given that they have to protect themselves against cardholder/friendly fraud. Its really not uncommon for someone to make a withdrawal or purchase and then claim that they didn't. Not for minute suggesting that the OP did this, but it is a real problem that the issuer needs to protect against - they will not just roll over and refund the transaction unless there is a compelling reason to.

The difficulty is that the evidence to support this isn't likely to mean anything to an end consumer. The only authority able to verify that the transaction was genuine is the issuer itself. I imagine that the only way to fully test this in court following a forensic investigation of the data and the systems involved.

Its unlikely that MBNA will simply turn over the cryptograms and other logs, but you should ask that they are preserved indefinitely as evidence of your ongoing dispute. Many cards systems purge much of this data after six months

I don't will get to court though - too much at stake for the industry if C&P is found to be fallible.

Definitely worth looking here http://www.phantomwithdrawals.com

bert&ernie

NickX wrote: »

If they have accused you of fraud, then you may have a case for "deformation of character" aswell.

Ouch! that sounds painful. I suppose to be defamed as well would just add insult to injury?:rotfl:

luvagoose

hi bert@ernie
Being slandered is not nice.
We have asked them to provide evidence that could be used in court, and tell us what steps they have taken to investigate this , but they chose to ignore our request and just say that they have an experienced team of investigators. we feel that we are banging our heads against a brick wall.

luvagoose

To James,
thank you for your PM message, i have tried to PM you back but for some reason it is not recognising your user name. Please PM me again.
Luvagoose

bert&ernie

I believe that the type of defamation you allege is libel - arguably worse than slander, as the harmful statement was made in a fixed form.

Either way, not nice, but I couldn't resist another bit of pedantry - sorry.