How does your Credit Card provider deal with fraud?

CornerHouse

It's only when a crisis hits that you find out who your real friends are... and it seems that Citi Cards are no friend of mine.

Despite suspecting that a series of transactions starting on 22 June and conducted in foreign currency were fraudulent, it took Citi more than a week to take any action. They cancelled my card but made no attempt to contact me.

The first I knew was discovering several hundred pounds in foreign currency transactions on my statement, which prompted me to call Citi on 19 July. I was promised that the fraud would be investigated and I should receive a declaration form within 10 working days.

10 days later, I have heard nothing and they now tell me that my case has only just reached the top of the pile and the investigation should start soon - give it another 10 days, they said.

Meanwhile, the fraudulent transactions remain on my account and will start to accrue interest. They say they'll sort it all out when their investigation is complete, but refuse to suspend the transactions as they would if they were disputed.

All in all, my experience with Citi throughout this has been lousy. I've now submitted a complaint about the delayed investigation and the rudeness of (foreign) call centre operatives, but I have lost faith in this organisation.

I'm looking for a new card provider and quality of service is top of my list. I'd like to hear about your experiences of customer service, both good and bad.

chattychappy

Nationwide Gold Visa were useless.

The account had been dormant for some time. £6800 went through in fraudulent transactions. It was something like £900, £5000, £900, all listed as PayPal within 3 or 4 days.

I noticed 6 weeks later (the account was dormant and I was overseas so didn't see the statement right away) and called them up. They said they would stop the card and send a replacement. They said they would call me back about the transactions (I gave them a UK number). They didn't stop the card and didn't return the call.

In summary:
1) They quickly acknowledged the transactions weren't mine and would credit immediately and associated interest/charges. They later said I would have to sign a form to say they weren't mine.

2) I signed the forms and they did credit the transactions. I had to chase the forms - they seemed to have sent me the wrong ones, so got the correct ones via a branch. As they were already happy that the transactions weren't mine - it was a fraud they were aware of - I wondered why they actually needed me to sign anything at all. But was happy to "go along with it".

3) Despite promises, it was a long time before they credited the interest and late fees. After initially promising they would, they later said that these were my responsibility. Then they changed their minds again and said they would credit them all, but only credited some. It wasn't complicated - the balance was zero when this started and they only had to return it to zero.

4) The manager responsible for my case said she could take emails with attachments from me, but never replied and when chased said she hadn't received stuff. It was apparent later that emails had been received on time. Just not read/processed.

5) They promised that no detrimental information had been passed to CRAs and if it had it would be reversed. They later confirmed in writing that all deterimental information had been removed. Months later I found that it hadn't.

6) At every stage, everyone was polite and friendly - just rather ineffectual.

7) When I finally wrote a big letter setting out the situation, they replied with two bottles of wine, but never answered the letter.

This was all against a background of NW knowing the transactions were not mine. Indeed their attitude from the start was that they were relaxed about it because they could "chargeback" the merchants as certain details hadn't been collected - CVV/expiry date I suppose. For a while this was used as a justification for not refunding "late fees" - they wouldn't be able to charge these back. I don't know the nature of the fraud - but they remarked - "this is an inhouse job, a block of cards has been affected". Actually I had lost an earlier card - since getting this card I'd not used it, so nobody else had seen it except for me and Nationwide, or their subcontractors.

Throughout the whole tale, they never replied to emails or returned phone calls (when they said they would). Stuff was noted down - so I would hear "oh yes it says that here, but I don't know why it's not happened". The only letter I received was the one saying they had credited the transactions and had removed associated detrimental information. Otherwise it was down to me chasing and re-chasing... stopping the card, crediting the transactions, getting the forms, refunding the charges.

By the way, I never demanded compensation or a full explanation. Just wanted it sorted and the balance restored to nil.