Fraudulent use of card

irishjohn

Can anyone help me advise a colleague please?

She had a call from Capital One last Saturday to say they thought they had identified fraudulent use of her card. She agreed with their suggestion that they would close the account immediately. This is to be confirmed in writing - but as yet the letter has not arrived.

Yesterday her statement arrived and the total is £388 of which £310 is fraudulent activity, mobile phone top ups and hotel charge for a room in Toronto.

I have written a letter for her to confirm what she consiuders to be the true expenditure items and what she considers to be fraudulent, and also confirming she has not divulged any details of her card and still has it in her possession.

The area I am unsure of is - What should she pay them? The £78 true expenditure or the full £388 payment? Obviously she expects the fraudulent transactions to be investigated and removed but neither does she wish to incur any interest charges.

Anyone able to advise me on this one urgently?


Thank you

belfastgirl23

When this happened on my amex card I was advised to pay it since it would get into an admin nightmare if I didn't. However I was lucky that I caught it early so it was only about £20 or so. The money was refunded very quickly.

I think what they were worried about was a missed payment going on my credit record - I assume their payments office is seperate from their investigations department and my impression was that they were a bit uncertain that communication always flows properly between the two!

pb3

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

When this happened on my amex card I was advised to pay it since it would get into an admin nightmare if I didn't. However I was lucky that I caught it early so it was only about £20 or so. The money was refunded very quickly.

I think what they were worried about was a missed payment going on my credit record - I assume their payments office is seperate from their investigations department and my impression was that they were a bit uncertain that communication always flows properly between the two!

How it should work is that the cc company should put the disputed charges and (interest on these charges) on hold while they investigate. This certainly
was my experience when I got hit by a number of fradulent airline ticket purchases.

Advising you to pay up to avoid "an admin nightmare" is certainly not on. The "admin nightmare" is their problem not yours. What if the charges ran into hundreds of pounds?

At the end of the day the cc company will certainly not lose money as they will simply charge back the disputed charges (if verified fradulent) to the merchant, and levy chargeback fees to boot.

JulieM

I agree with pb3. This has happened to us recently with a Lloyds TSB card. We were advised to pay for our own items, not the ones in dispute, so I totalled them and added on a bit extra just to be on the safe side.

AWinner

my wifes LloydsTSB card was hit and they called us, we checked our online account and told them what we thought was not correct (including 2 London Traffic Zone charges!).
They then sent out forms for her to complete and return. In about 14-21 days all these suspect debits were cancelled.

irishjohn

thank you all for your advice - I knew I could depend on MSE buddies

anotherpaul_2

pb3 wrote: »

Advising you to pay up to avoid "an admin nightmare" is certainly not on. The "admin nightmare" is their problem not yours. What if the charges ran into hundreds of pounds?

Whether it's their nightmare or not, you still have to go through the hassle of sorting it out. However, I agree and I'd only pay what I owe them.

Geenie

When I had £1,000 worth of fraud on my Barclaycard last year, despite noting it as pending, ringing up straight away and card cancelled, I payed off in total the statement that came through the following month as was worried that I would be charged interest etc!!! :eek:

But I wrote them a stroppy letter at having to do so. They refunded it in total the next month without having to do anything else, though I believe I should have filled out some form to claim it back.