Beware of dodgy Colin and Nationwide's unconcern

chattychappy

My Flex account debit card expires this month.

A few days ago, I get a phone call from "Colin" claiming to be from Nationwide. He says they are sending out my new debit card but need to check my address is correct. He tells me my address and asks if it is correct. "Sure" I reply. Asks my DoB - I give him this - it's publicly available. Then he needs to ask some "security questions", first of which is what other accounts I have with Nationwide. I say that this rather abnormal and offer to call him back. He says it's because they get a lot of fraud and not easy to call him back. Yeah right. I ask him to send me a letter - he says he would and that's all I heard.

I suspected that someone had intercepted my new debit card and was trying to get hold of a PIN or change the address etc in order to use if fraudulently.

I rang Nationwide, but they refused to do anything as I didn't have my account number to hand (I was on a train).

I rang them later in the day. They said that they didn't think anybody would call like that. I asked them if they'd sent a new card out - all they could say is that one had been ordered, but I should receive it a week to two weeks before expiry of the old card. (We were at about 10 days). They didn't know if it had been dispatched yet but that probably it had been. Certainly I've always received replacement cards well before expiry.

Then the disinterested operator said "it's up to you what you do". She just said if I wanted to cancel it, she could do that "for me", but they would charge me £10 if it happened 3 times in one year. (Not bothered about that - and I'd argue it anyway.)

I decided to cancel the card. Still not received it, so it does seem that it was intercepted.

Was a bit disappointed but (not surprised) at the operators "up to you" attitude. Like she was doing me a favour because "I'd" lost a card and wanted it replaced.

But anyway - watch out for Colin! I suggest if you have a similar experience, you DO cancel your card.

Col7777

It's good you got wise, it might have been OK but a friend of mine told me of his wife's card not arriving and she got a statement with some big sums of money taken out.
To cut it short it turned out hey caught a man and his wife at a shopping centre, they had a few cards in their possession, all stolen.
This man worked at the post office sorting office and he knew what the envelopes looked like that contained the cards, he then waited and intercepted the later letters that contained the pin numbers, he matched them up and got around a dozen cards.
Obviously some letters didn't match any of the cards but like I said he knew what they looked like and out of all those letters he got lucky on a few.

My Name is Colin by the way and it isn't me, honest.

chattychappy

Yep. Well... because Nationwide didn't really engage with this, I'm sure they'll send a second card by exactly the same means and in the same packaging as the first.

Just had a thought - when the guy asked me the "security questions", rather than refuse I could have given him the wrong answers. If he'd accepted the answers then it would rather prove he wasn't legit.

olly300

You obviously got through to an miserable sod at Nationwide.

I had an issue with my credit card and refused to answer the security questions when they phoned me. I then phoned through and got someone helpful who actually contacted the fraud department to check if it was genuine. It was genuine but a mistake on their part. The reason I got suspicious is that I had sorted out the issue the day before by me phoning them so for them to then phone me got me worried.

Unfortunately like with all financial institutions their staff are hit and miss. If the staff are miss and I can be bothered I ensure I have their name and put in a written complaint.

JohalaReewi

chattychappy wrote: »

Just had a thought - when the guy asked me the "security questions", rather than refuse I could have given him the wrong answers. If he'd accepted the answers then it would rather prove he wasn't legit.

Should be standard practice. If you get someone phoning you and claiming to be the bank, CC company, whatever, asking you to confirm some security questions before they continue, always give them the wrong info. If they then say that is OK you know it is a hoax. If you fail, they will tell you and you can try again. Also ask them a security question.