Channel 4: Data Scandal

clark1982

Hi folks,

Was watching a documentary on channel 4, about data that had been stolen then sold to fraudsters.

It was very interesting watching, and most of the stolen data came from customers that had been called and offered a mobile phone, or that had applied in a mobile phone shop.

The sort of data being sold was personal details such as Name, address, D.O.B, bank details, credit card details etc...

The data was bought from corrupt Indian call centre staff.

I would never have bought anything over the phone, and deffinatley not now.

I would be very cautious on who you're dealing with, whether it be in a mobile phone shop or if you're called!

trinity1_2

yes I watched it too, pretty scary stuff!

Old_Gold

Surely the kind of money you are talking about must be pretty high to overcome the losses of fraud they must be paying out for.

Reestit_Mutton

ts_aly2000 wrote:

That's just the thing. They try not to pay out at all saying that it's clearly the customer's negligence.

If you're in possession of your card and it isn't reported stolen, their response is to to wriggle out of it in any way they can.

Actually, that's not my experience at all.

A number of years ago I lost a bag that contained a cheque book. Because this cheque book was very rarely taken out of my filing cabinet I hadn't realised it was missing until I received a letter from the bank telling me to stop writing cheques that I couldn't honour. While they had only allowed the first cheque for £1200 to be honoured (thus putting me overdrawn), had they honoured all subsequent cheques written I would have been over £6000 overdrawn!!!

By the time they caught the woman who was writing these cheques she had managed to procure some £15000 worth of goods.

Anyway, on the subject of who was footing the bill for this, the bank said that as it was clearly a case of fraud they would have no problem reimbursing me in full (including any bank charges they had levied to date) as they were insured for such eventualities.

I would be very surprised if the bank doesn't simply rely on its insurance to foot the bill in this instance as using stolen credit card details to procure goods at the card owner's expense is clearly also a case of both fraud (against the bank) and theft (against the person).

Reestit Mutton

Quentin

Your experience was to do with a stolen chequebook. Obviously any cheques drawn from it were fraudulently signed etc.

The post you replied to was regarding a card's details.

Chalk and cheese!

achtunglady

i think the public should vote with their feet and use banks which dont have indian call centres.

ericthekidstoner

Quentin wrote:

Your experience was to do with a stolen chequebook. Obviously any cheques drawn from it were fraudulently signed etc.

The post you replied to was regarding a card's details.

Chalk and cheese!

indeed, especially considering they caught the fraudster so could prosecute

its different if there's no obvious line of enquiry or it's too expensive to investigate, thus they simply have to write off the debt

gremlin

I used to work for a high street bank. My job went to an Indian call centre and when we did a bit of research we were told that India et al is not subject to the same data protection as the UK. Therefore it seems to me that your personal details held in these countries are vulnerable.

On the other hand, all bank call centre staff in Bangalore etc. have to be educated to degree level and although the wages seem very poor to us in the west, it is a reasonabley good job in India and the risk of losing it can have dire consequenses.

Whether call centre staff would take this risk is debatable, there are always some trying to exploit loopholes, but I believe that the consequenses of fraudsters getting hold of your iinformation in this manner would be more severe.

Vote with your feet, dont use foreign call centres until companies can improve security of your data.

Reestit_Mutton

ericthekidstoner wrote:

indeed, especially considering they caught the fraudster so could prosecute

its different if there's no obvious line of enquiry or it's too expensive to investigate, thus they simply have to write off the debt

I don't think its as much chalk and cheese as you would think.

Firstly, the bank agreed to refund me BEFORE they found the culprit.

Secondly, the moment someone makes a purchase using stolen credit card details they are misrepresenting themselves and thus it is fraud, which is covered by the bank's insurers. Yes, it's more difficult to prove conclusively without a signature (or phone record) but it's still fraud nonetheless.

The only real issue here is whether it is possible to convince the bank's insurers that fraud has occured (a necessary prerequisite for an insurance payout). I would argue that expensive investigations aren't totally necessary in this regard.

Computer systems are very good at detecting potentially fraudulent transactions these days. In many cases the pattern of purchases is clearly suspect and sometimes the location of the purchase also gives it away. As long as the disputed transactions match the necessary profile and the customer is prepared to sign a statement, that should be good enough for the bank's insurer to accept that the customer is telling the truth and pay out - of course, a condition of payout would be that the card in question was immediately cancelled to prevent further loss.

I would be willing to wager that anyone wishing to play on this fact by making spurious claims will eventually be outed by their own greed and stupidity in any case and prosecuted.

In the case of my missing chequebook, the culprit was only found out because she was stupid enough to use the same retailer twice.

Reestit Mutton

Quentin

The chalk and cheese here is a credit card fraud versus a cheque fraud.

Your bank had no alternative but to credit your account years ago when they allowed a fraudulent cheque to clear against it (false signature etc).

They have different ideas about credit card fraud!

sheedatali

Well i was not totally socked to see the documentary last night, it was bound to happen, companies and UK businesses just have not thought the plan the right way through, i never trust any of the call centers either they are in UK or they are in India. I think any financial details given should not be dealt with over the phone, and call center staff should never deal with it. We are not just talking about financial loss over here, privacy of consumers is being compromised here. I can not sleep in the night if i know that my details are in some indian gang hands and are being given over to someone who would be able to spring a financial or any other fraud on me. I think the government should force those involved to take 100% responsibility of whatever damage happens due to any outsourcing. And yes we will vote with out Feet.

Watch this for an indian call centre

http://www.callcentermovie.com/movie/movie2.html