Abbey - HELP

IKWeb

Hello All

I am in need of some advice, My mother-in-laws bank card looks like its been cloned, there are purchase made which were not done by her or her other half, and in places within the UK they have not been.

They have wiped out most of the money in her account, she found this out today by trying to withdraw some money from her account and thus the bank not giving her any.

She has since been into the bank and spoken with the local branch manager who has said there is not much they (Abbey) can do.... but they will look into this matter,

I find this hard to believe that if your card is cloned then there is not much the bank will do to help, Has anyone had this issue with Abbey, and if so did you speak to a specialist department via the phone, I have checked the website and cant find anything on there to do with Fraud, so not sure if they have a fraud dept....

Anyway any help and advice you can give would be very welcome as this issue is causing some distress and I would like to know where we can go from here...

TIA

Danny

HamiltonL

Don't worry Danny help is at hand.

First of all were these card payments (I assume they were) or cash transactions?

And I assume your MIL has had her card blocked?

She (as main cardholder) needs to call the Abbey Disputes team on 0845 601 7238. They are open 9-5, Monday to Friday. They will log those disputes, send her the forms out within a fortnight and get the money refunded once returned.

There are several Abbey Fraud departments, but I think Abbey Disputes are the right people for this situation.

Not sure what the branch were on about. They should at least be able to call up the Disputes team, even log it at their end.

IKWeb

Thanks for your help, I will pass this information on to her this evening, The transactions were all web base, Pizza hut, and cab companies who offer the facility to book a cab online.

I will post an update as soon as I have one.

Once again thanks.

PaulLewis222

For info - make sure you stay on the case of whoever you log it with, or else there is the possibility of it dragging on and on in my experience..... get names of who you talk to, date and time, what was agreed and write it all down......

You never know if you'll need it later to prove you have spoken to Abbey more than once :mad:

Just as an aside - anyone know the difference between the Visa dispute team and Fraud investigation team? One would think they were one and the same - the more cynical might think that logging a visa dispute makes Abbey's fraud figures look better as a transaction in dispute isn't classed the same as a fraudulent transaction...... I know it might be unfair to pick on them, but maybe HamiltonL can shed light on this one??

daveyjp

Get her to go back into branch and get them to call for her. It's so much easier - they know the numbers, they know the procedure, they won't be fobbed off.

HamiltonL

PaulLewis222 wrote: »

Just as an aside - anyone know the difference between the Visa dispute team and Fraud investigation team? One would think they were one and the same - the more cynical might think that logging a visa dispute makes Abbey's fraud figures look better as a transaction in dispute isn't classed the same as a fraudulent transaction...... I know it might be unfair to pick on them, but maybe HamiltonL can shed light on this one??

Certainly. To be honest my understanding is most banks offer a similar arrangement to ourselves when it comes to a Disputes team and a Fraud team. Both Abbey Disputes and Fraud deal with current accounts and savings accounts. They are both based in the UK, but not at Milton Keynes HQ.

Abbey Disputes deal with card transactions when (this is the part which seperates Disputes from Fraud) the customer has possession of the card when the transactions take place. This is for card payments. They also deal with the non-dispense/mis-dispense of cash from ATM's, which is not a fraud issue as such.

Abbey Fraud* deal with mostly ATM fraud (regardless of whether the cardholder had the card in their possession or not). They also deal with card payments, but only when the card was not in the customer's possession, e.g. lost or stolen.

*There are seperate fraud departments for other roles - one for declined transactions on card, holiday advance notices etc. Then there is one for identity fraud etc.

pcyam

IKWeb

I'm sorry this has happened to your mother-in-law.

Like HamiltonL said you can (or go into an abbey branch) call the visa dispute line, they will log all the transactions which are frauldelant and send out the forms to you to check, when the forms come through the post your mother-in-law needs to check all the transactions are on the form (i've seen some customers have ones missed off when i've logged the call for them), if there are any missing you need to make a note on the form (personally, i have re-rang the dept for some customers before). On receipt of this they will refund all money to your account pending investigation. If they find out that any transactions are done by your mother-in-law the funds will be taken out of your account and i think theres a £10 charge if any transactions reported turn out to be done by the account holder. It take up to 10workding days for forms to arrive.

I was once told that the visa dispute line are not just for abbey customers and they deal with specifically only to VISA card disputes, whereas the fraud dept are part of Abbey and will deal with all fraudulent transactions linked to abbey. Personally, I have found its quickers to go through visa disputes for card fraud.

PS visa disputes cannot cancel ONLY abbey can, so if the branch havent done so yet, go back in and get them to cancel and re-issue but as already mentioned has to be done by your MIL.

hope this helps
xx

HamiltonL

Yep, that's pretty much spot on. A few little things though.

First of all, I believe the disputes team are solely Abbey as whenever I have called them they say "Welcome to Abbey Disputes", but they also deal with Abbey savings accounts (savings accounts often suffer ATM fraud) so you don't just get the Visa cards (beginning with 4), you also get cards beginning 5 or 6 too.

I also understand Abbey disputes are able to block and reissue cards. I asume they (like us in Credit Cards) add a stolen block then reissue it. A stolen block is vital - any other block can hinder the investigation.

Thirdly, I don't always find adding the transactions onto a printed disclaimer assures they will be refunded. I've had that a few times where any missing transactions that have been added onto the disclaimer don't get credited like the others. It may not be on the disclaimer for a number of reasons. Firstly if the cardholder has reported some transactions that have cleared onto the account, but others that have been authorised have NOT cleared, only the cleared transactions can be reported at that time. That's why the Disputes team will block and reissue the card on the day it is reported, but advise the cardholder to call back in a few days when ALL the transactions have cleared, so the disclaimers all arrive in one fell swoop. The other reason, hard to admit, is if a few transactions have been logged incorrectly, or worst of all, not at all. The first reason is most common though.

IKWeb

Guys

Many thanks for your feedback, HamiltonL, we called the number you posted and they have arranged to get the forms sent out. They said it would take about 10 days. Again I will keep you posted, but hopefully all should not get sorted :-) Well I can hope.