Credit card fraud - Shell and Tesco - I'm shocked

George_Bray

EXAMPLE 1: at petrol filling stations, for years/decades now, I've noticed that the attendants never even look at my credit card to check for a signature. With the fairly high cost of a fill up, it seems surprising, to say the least. The banks state the importance of essential security procedures but these fuel retailers don't give a damn. Shell have now returned to signatures after suspending chip and pin for some reason. Well, my credit card now has no signature at all! The whole signature strip has worn away. I know, I know - I should get it replaced, But it's an eye opener. At a Shell filling station the other day, the attendant accepted my payment, and didn't care that there was no signature on the card.

There was a Shell leaflet on the counter which said: "The security of our customers' transactions remains Shell's primary concern". So I phoned Shell's customer service people and, the bottom line, as I see it is: (a) they say all the right things, like taking the compaint seriously, Shell operates to the highest standards, etc, etc, blah, blah but (b) I don't think they give a damn, and the fraud overhead is probably preferable to the tedious business of checking signatures. I'm appalled.

EXAMPLE 2: Tesco have launched self service check-outs. Great! But if you pay by credit card, there's no need for a PIN, signature of anything! I'm shocked again.

I have no sympathy with the banks concerns about credit card fraud. I'm disgusted that they allow and effectively encourage it, and just pass on the cost to the consumers at the end of the day.

Regards
George

schiff

George

Might need to be a bit careful about your thread title - you could have the solicitors after you!

Your first point - I know you will find it unconnected but for years in France if you paid by a UK credit card, you were invariably given the card back after they had swiped it.

Second point - are you sure? I have used self-scan and paid by CC and seem to remember that I tapped in my PIN - but now you have made me not so sure! I'll be more attentive next time.

The whole CC thing is really quite sloppy though the CC companies go through the motions of emphasising the security aspects. But they make so much money out of it that they just want people to use credit cards all the time, and if it goes wrong here and there they just take it on the chin.

schiff

Dead_Eye_Jones

yeah, maybe from the sound of your experience at least, they arent as tight as they should be, but that is a long way from 'encouraging' fraud. They are hardly inviting people to commit fraud and Im sure they would get very concerned once a complaint is made and it looks like they wont get their cash.



In my experience it was always like this. This is why the system was so flawed, I recall female friends taking a male friends card up to the bar to get the drinks in simply cos he couldnt be arsed to move (well at least he paid for em lol!) .

mooncalf

hi there,

the tesco self service checkouts do allow you to use your credit card without a pin. there is no pin terminal, you just swipe your card and out pops the reciept. So if you forget your pin just go do your shopping at tesco

However the ones in asda have a chip and pin terminal.

PBA

It comes down to a business decision by the retailer. If any fraudulent transactions go through it's them that loses the money, not the cardholder. In Tescos case, they obviously have decided that it's cheaper to allow a few fraudulent transactions to go through which they then refund than it is to employ checkout staff for each till.

Saucepot

The thing about fuel is that a photo is taken of each registration plate that fills up. The biggest fraud is people doing a runner. The photo can make the cashiers complacent. They shouldn't be, I agree.

A couple of years ago my sister was staying with me and had the front number plate of her car nicked. She thought it too trivial to contact the police. I explained why someone would steal it, for use in fuel theft, and explain she had to record the crime so as the police knew subsequent crimes were not hers.

daveboy

Shell and credit card fraud.....anyone who used the one on Clarendon Avenue in Leamington Spa will be able to associate the two...£1 million stolen by a chip and PIN scam, £250,000 of which was from the Leamington filling station.

I've also thought the same with Tesco....you still need one member of staff to oversee the self scan tills in case of problems. Sainsbury's still require a PIN in theirs. I suppose Tesco can take the hit of course, their profits aren't exactly small.

Nothing wrong with the thread title at all.

Welliesorter

Lots of terminals don't need a PIN. Other examples include Tesco petrol pumps and virtually every NCP car park. It's only very recently that Asda have changed their pumps so that the PIN is needed.

I believe that Shell suspended chip and PIN because it was discovered that the links between the keypads and the terminals were insecure.

Bossyboots

It is actually Martin Lewis who will be in trouble if someone decides the thread title is libellous not the poster. The owner of the site is responsible for what is posted here and for removing inappropriate postings as soon as it is practicable to do so.

I am not sure there is actually anything wrong with the the title anyway.

Not only do Tesco not have chip and pin on their self serve tills, their own debit card (Clubcard Plus) does not even have a chip and they do not intend to change that.

molar

Tesco Chip-And-PIN-Enables Self-Service Checkouts

:T

James

Tesco Declares War on Skimmers:

Statistics show that skimming accounted for over £95 million-worth of losses to customer accounts across the entire network of ATMs.

http://www.fairinvestment.co.uk/banking-news-Tesco-declares-war-on-skimmers-17232182.html

The introduction of chip-and-pin cards was supposed to reduce fraud, but according to the FOS, complaints involving disputed transactions have soared.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/07/12/cmbank12.xml&menuId=244&sSheet=/money/2006/07/12/ixperson.html

When it comes to liability - go for a signature everytime. Get yourself Chip & Signature credit cards.