Fraudulent Balance Transfer

zarjaz_2

Received my credit card statement yesterday. Checked it thoroughly, as I always do. I noticed an entry for a balance transfer to another credit card for £3000. I certainly hadn't requested this, so called the card issuer (Sainsbury's Bank).

They immediately blocked my card, then transferred me to their Fraud dept. I was asked a series of questions: where did I keep the card; had it been out of my possession; what did I do with receipts etc. I was told the funds had been transferred to an HSBC Gold VISA card. I don't have an HSBC VISA card! They wouldn't tell me any more, but said that someone would have to have known my date of birth, and my card details, including the CCV number. They also said someone would have to have had my personal password, used when calling them up. I never give this information out. They were, I think, trying to suggest that it must have been me, as no-one else would have had all these details.

I'm now waiting to hear from them, though they have suspended the £3000 on my statement.

Has anyone else had this happen? Can someone make a balance transfer in other ways? I'm now trying to think where I was using the card. I was in a big hotel recently, and they took an imprint of both sides of my card...so they would know the CCV number.

Any advice?!!!

Astaroth

As long as it isnt you that has done the balance transfer to your card (rather than to another card as you originally said) then their fraud department will sort it out. I am sure you appreciate that they have to look into these things fully as if they didnt it would be far too easy for people to cry fraud on real transactions.

In a digital age there are a multitude of innocent and malicious possible ways of things like this to happen. The chances are obviously very slim but they do exist. Once they have decided that the transaction was fraudulant they will then go on to try and work out how it happened and close the loophole (assuming it is possible to/ cost effective to if we are being honest).

Dipak

zarjaz wrote:

Received my credit card statement yesterday. Checked it thoroughly, as I always do. I noticed an entry for a balance transfer to another credit card for £3000. I certainly hadn't requested this, so called the card issuer (Sainsbury's Bank).

They immediately blocked my card, then transferred me to their Fraud dept. I was asked a series of questions: where did I keep the card; had it been out of my possession; what did I do with receipts etc. I was told the funds had been transferred to an HSBC Gold VISA card. I don't have an HSBC VISA card! They wouldn't tell me any more, but said that someone would have to have known my date of birth, and my card details, including the CCV number. They also said someone would have to have had my personal password, used when calling them up. I never give this information out. They were, I think, trying to suggest that it must have been me, as no-one else would have had all these details.

I'm now waiting to hear from them, though they have suspended the £3000 on my statement.

Has anyone else had this happen? Can someone make a balance transfer in other ways? I'm now trying to think where I was using the card. I was in a big hotel recently, and they took an imprint of both sides of my card...so they would know the CCV number.

Any advice?!!!

Hi zarjaz, dont worry about it, they will contact HSBC and find that you never owned that card and they should take that balance off. Just for you to bare in mind tho is that usually most CC companies charge a one-off fee when transferring a balance and that may have been charged to your card. Double check this and tell you bank to remove that too as its not yours.

King_Of_Fools

I am not 100% sure I understand you. Was the balance transfer from or to your Sainsbury's card? In otherwords, did you debt balance go up or down by £3000?

Galstonian

It seems an unlikely way to commit fraud since not only do you have to compromise someones account you have to send money to another credit card and get it out. You wouldn't do that with a legitimate credit card and if you had a bent credit card why not just take cash out or purchase stuff?

More likely to be a simple error IMO.

auditbabe

I don't have an HSBC VISA card! They wouldn't tell me any more, but said that someone would have to have known my date of birth, and my card details, including the CCV number. They also said someone would have to have had my personal password, used when calling them up. I never give this information out. They were, I think, trying to suggest that it must have been me, as no-one else would have had all these details.

A couple of months ago I received a letter from Argos asking that I ring them urgently, when I did I was informed that some one had requested a credit card in my name (I don't have any credit cards). Who ever it was knew things about me ie date of birth and my maiden name and other personal information. There is now a red flag on my name and I will be contacted should any thing similar happen again.

I have no idea who has this data about me but I'm sure that I not the only one this has happened to. I just want to say that it can happen to any one

chriz1000

Its sounds to me more like a mistake on there half. I think someone with a similar account number to you probably made the request and it was a mix up with your account.
If someone used your card to do a bank balance transfer they will go down in history as one of the worlds dumbest criminals, as it will lead straight back to there bank account. Its kind of like robbing a bank and giving the bank manager your Driving License on the way out

AMILLIONDOLLARS

I am very careful about the data I give out about myself on the internet/or anywhere. You are alwaye asked your date of birth, address etc, which I am very caution about. Furthermore, I never give out details on the street, you can be stopped several times to sign up for charity or goodness knows what and you would be surprised how many conmen get your details this way. And don't forget to shred any personal details before putting them in the recycle bin. Even junk mail can work against you. so be carefull!!

zarjaz_2

King_Of_Fools wrote:

I am not 100% sure I understand you. Was the balance transfer from or to your Sainsbury's card? In otherwords, did you debt balance go up or down by £3000?

Yeas. Sorry. I think that in my annoyance, I didn't make it clear.

If I can explain: In addition to my purchases of around £1200 for March/April, there was an item for £3000 which stated "Balance Transfer". This made the total I owed for last month £4200. I didn't ask for any such transfer...so someone, somewhere, has got £3000 from my VISA card!

Gary

Mikeyorks

chriz1000 wrote:

If someone used your card to do a bank balance transfer they will go down in history as one of the worlds dumbest criminals, as it will lead straight back to there bank account. Its kind of like robbing a bank and giving the bank manager your Driving License on the way out

I'm afraid that's not quite right. Whereas fraudsters prefer the direct approach - such as taking cash from ATMs using cloned cards - they are diverse. And frequently set up bogus current / credit accounts using various methods to obtain the data. They then launder stolen cheques through them. Set up bogus SOs against business accounts - using Directors names from headed business paper etc. And then clear the accounts as soon as there's a reasonable accumulation of someone elses money in them.

Haven't actually seen a fraudulent balance transfer yet. But then the general public hadn't seen £1M syphoned from garage PIN terminals until last week?

gingercordial

chriz1000 wrote:

Its sounds to me more like a mistake on there half. I think someone with a similar account number to you probably made the request and it was a mix up with your account.
If someone used your card to do a bank balance transfer they will go down in history as one of the worlds dumbest criminals, as it will lead straight back to there bank account. Its kind of like robbing a bank and giving the bank manager your Driving License on the way out

When my Capital One card was cloned, among other things they renewed their car insurance...