Have 1 in 4 really been a victim of ID fraud?

krisskross

Thought someone was using my details once. There was an item on my credit card bill for about £35 from a shop called Forplay. I nearly had kittens on the spot knowing that I had never bought anything from a shop with a name like that. Queried it with the card company who credited me with the disputed amount, apparently cheaper than looking into it for relatively small amounts. However a month or so later the company appeared on my statement again. This time, with a very red face I twigged......it was a music store! I did own up to the card company but they just said enjoy your free music.

aurora_borealis_2

B .... card cloning

europa16

I dunno if this counts, but a number of years ago, I had an account with Barclays, and occassionally used my cheque for paying for kebabs. Naive as I was, I happily let them put my card number on the back as proof.

6 months later, after I closed the account, I noticed £130 missing from my new FD account. Querting this, they said Barclays had taken it! It appears that somebody at the takeaway had decided they need a new chair and used my card details to order one from Argos!

Needless to say, I was none to happy with my bank and they, bizarrely, credited my account with 2 lots of £130.

Hasn't happened since....fingers crossed

zeroamp

Yep I've recently been caught and have no idea how it happened. A guy went into a Computer shop in Stockport bearing a card with my details on it. I hadn't lost my card etc. The bank picked up another transaction and blocked it. I got the money back. The best advice I think is:

1. Always cover your hand when chipping and pinning - if a camera is on you it is not an x-ray machine and cannot see under your hand.

2. Get your details online and check your balance regularly - in that way if strange transactions appear you can stop it quick!

3. Don't delay in claiming as Visa has time limits on these things.

Finally as Shaw would say "..keep 'em peeled!"

chatta

B card copied and used.

lynseyf

europa16 wrote:

I dunno if this counts, but a number of years ago, I had an account with Barclays, and occassionally used my cheque for paying for kebabs. Naive as I was, I happily let them put my card number on the back as proof.

6 months later, after I closed the account, I noticed £130 missing from my new FD account. Querting this, they said Barclays had taken it! It appears that somebody at the takeaway had decided they need a new chair and used my card details to order one from Argos!

Needless to say, I was none to happy with my bank and they, bizarrely, credited my account with 2 lots of £130.

Hasn't happened since....fingers crossed

My local takeaway do this as well. I thought it was no more risky than using the card to pay by switch as they will have a note of all your card details with that as well. Slightly worried now but at least we don't use them anymore as the food is now rubbish.

*Louise*

D. Never had any problems - and don't know anyone else who has.

Fingers crossed it stays that way

lynneinjapan

B - but I don'tthink it was really fraud, more likely someone accidentally pressing the wrong key while taking an order over the phone. My credit card bill arrived with a charge of £980 which apparently had been paid to a company that turned out to deal in armoured vehicles and guard dogs! I queried it, the bank froze that part of the bill and sent me a replacement card, and subsequently wiped the debt; presumably they'd found that the name didn't match the card number, or something similarly obvious.

CelticStar

I've had a credit card cloned and my husband has just had his Halifax debit card cloned.

admiralhanson

Hello Money Saving People !

As a bit of a ghost on here for a while, I thought I better register and show myself for the first time and especially because the subject matter of this tread is something I have personal experience of.

In terms of the questions asked at the start, I really have to say ‘A’.

The problems all started around 2000, when one Saturday morning I got a letter from the debt collections department of a major credit card company telling me that I owed them around £800. It was unusual to say the least, as I had never had a card or ‘relationship’ with that organisation.

After further investigation and discussions with their fraud department, the application made in my name was undertaken from an address I lived at in Greater London that I had left some 11 months previously.

The fraud department of the major company sorted out the amount, wrote it off and removed the search from my credit file. I guess they must have plenty of experience !

A couple of days later, whilst I was out at work, there was a knock on the door from a debt collector instructed to visit by a major credit card company. They had not bothered contacted me previously by letter, but instead decided to come around and demand money from me directly. The way I was treated by them initially was disgusting, however their fraud department (once it became aware of the problem) were efficient in sorting it out.

I used to work in the financial services industry and knowing some of the procedures to go through, so I obtained a copy of my credit reference file and examined it for anything I didn’t recognise. I found another organisation that had issued cards against my name, that were fraudulent.

Basically, three cards had been fraudulently issued in my name. The third company, a sub prime lender (and now a division of the first company) were frankly cr*p. They were disinterested by the problem, dispite screwing my credit record with an unpaid £3K debt that wasn’t even mine. It took me countless phone calls and letters to get the thing sorted out and was treated on most occasions by obnoxious individuals who clearly thought I was ‘trying something on’.

Once the dust had settled, it was time to sort it out and get something back from the companies that had caused my inconvenience. Using my financial knowledge and some friends that worked in the credit card companies, as well as the ‘treat’ to take the matter to my MP and the press, I outlined their systemic shortfalls and where they had been negligent. Two out of three paid up straight away, the third took a bit of ‘coaxing’ (including a call from a journalist friend of mine). I received £250 from each of them.

There were a number of shortfalls in the credit card system which was exploited at the time by the fraudster :

1) All the applications were on pre-completed application forms. Most of my personal details were already on the form and all the fraudster had to do was complete the form and post it off …
2) The ‘checks’ undertaken by the companies, compared to the information contained on the application were incompetent to say the least. Their checks basically consisted of ‘does he have a good credit record’ and ‘is he on the electoral register there’. They issued cards more or less on the strength of that. I would suggest that using the Electoral Register, which I understand is only complied once or twice a year is not a sufficient check for both accuracy and data protection. A couple of the cards were issued on the strength of information that was 11 months out of date.
3) No one bothered to check the bank reference given on the application by the fraudster. It was a false account.
4) No one bothered to check the employers details and salary, which were false too.
5) At the time I had a couple of credit cards myself. Reasonably, does anyone need four, five or six cards ? I know there is a lot of card tarting going on these days and that is understandable reason for having multiple cards, but it did not seem to trigger any extra checks like with four cards issued already, why does he want ours too ? There might be a legitimate reason for it, but surely it should have prompted extra checks (if even to insure that they weren’t storing up a bad debt problem in the future ?)

I understand it is illegal to now send ‘pre completed’ credit card applications to individuals, but how many times (even on the MPS) have you got a card application addressed ‘to the home owner’ ?

It seemed from my case that the principle aim of the card companies was to get the card sent out as quick as possible and get spending on it, above all other checks.

At the end of the day, around £7K was written off in my case. £7K that I guess the rest of us have to pay for. For the sake of a little bit of a delay and a few simple checks, the greed and short-sightedness of the card companies could be one of the principle causes of the problem in the first place.

PS – To add insult to injury, I checked my credit file around 9 months later and the third’ (useless) company actually had the cheek to add back the fraudulent credit search to my credit file with no authority. I suspect it was the reason why a loan application to help develop my buy-to-let business was declined initially, but of course they denied this. They damm well removed it again that time.