Barcleycard Fraudulous transactions

gonzo127

Hello all

Right I am just wondering what sort of information I am likely to need or any advice on how to get this resolved, also to vent my frustrations!

Anyway the situation

My wife has been contacted by Barcleycard in regards to a ‘potential’ fraudulous (sorry about the spelling) transaction on her barcleycard, ok we didn’t give any information straight to the people who phoned us due to the basic security you need to take with phone calls, so we got the basic details from them of the problem which was the card had been used in Belgium within 1 hour of us using it in Kent, we then found one of our old statements and phoned them back from the number on it.

Although they had phoned us on our home telephone number they then asked us to provide security details, now this is fine, my wife provided them with her name address and date of birth, great….not

Now this is where the problems started

they then asked us to provide details of a transaction which happened 5 months ago (which fast food place did we use it in), which we not surprisingly couldn’t tell them, however they did say that most people they contact can tell them exactly what happened 5 months ago so it must just be us being strange.

Now unfortunately we only keep our statements for 3 months before shredding them (due to space constraints in our house) so we cant go and find the old statement to get those details off anyway so now we have problems. They now ask for another transaction, which my wife wasn’t sure off and looked to me for help, I knew what it was for so I told her, this is not good enough though since the lady on the end of the phone had heard me tell my wife what it was so it is a invalid answer (although correct) because those details did not come straight out of her mouth. So now they now do not believe we are who we say we are, and they can not accept any other form of information as proof of identification.

Now to me this is very strange anyway, and am just wondering if this is common practice. That when investigating potential fraudulous transactions the only way to prove who you are is to tell them what transactions you have had, even thou they are potentially fraudulous as well.

Anyways they have told us we must go into our local Barcleys and take ID in with us, however since they couldn’t discus the account with us they couldn’t tell us if the account has currently been or suspended or even what ID we will require

So please can you let me know

1/ what ID we are likely to need
2/ is it common practice to use transaction details to prove who you are when investigating fraudulous transactions – still seems crazy to me
3/ how long should we actually keep our statements in future?
4/ who is currently the best credit card provider so once we have sorted this we can cancel it and move somewhere else, currently only have about £20 on it and only use it very lightly for the odd unforeseen problems, (max limit required of about £500)

Thanks for reading sorry its such a long one

maninthestreet

It's 'Barclays', not 'Barcleys', and 'fraudulent', not 'fraudulous'!

1) Passport
2) Yes, it is common practice. A fraudster who has obtained your card details is unlikely to know about transactions made by cardholder 6 months previously.
3) At least 12 months, but that's just my opinion.
4) It's a matter of opinion

gonzo127

thanks for the reply, i still find it a bit mad using transactions as a security measure when investigating transaction fraud and that is with me being an accountant, as we would never be allowed to use the same thing we are investigating as a security check

also thanks for the spelling corrections i really cant spell for the life of me, probably why i have become an accountant...

anyways do you think her passport (which is in her previous name) with our marrage certificate would be enough or would a drivers license be better,