Identity Theft Problem

burkey38

With my Dad's permission I used my father's Northern Bank Visa card to buy a memory card on ebay, payment for which was processed through Paypal.

My father received his card statement yesterday and as well as the purchase I made there were two other transactions on the card, one made on JohnLewis.com and the other from M&S.

Obviously I nor he know nothing about these transactions. He cancelled the card yesterday and was told to go into his local Northern Bank branch tomorrow to advise them of whats happened and to see if there are any other unknown transactions that might appear on the next statement.

My feeling is that it's something to day with a paypal employee who has access to cardholder's details. This card had not been used through paypal for a long time and the suspicious transactions appeared the day after my ebay purchase.

The same thing happened to my uncle at Christmas when he made a purchase through paypal for the first time and then his card was used the next day for £700 of goods he knew nothing about.

These tranactions were investigated by the card company and reversed.

When my father contacted John Lewis about the purchase made from their website, all they could tell him was that it was delivered to a postal address in the South of England.

My nagging doubt is this. If my father goes to his brach tomorrow to discuss what's happened and he tells them that he let me use the card for a paypal payment will they say oh thats too bad, you shouldnt have done that and theres nothing we can do?

Any advice appreciated.

redped

How about just getting your Dad to just say he bought the memory card? So long as you both know you didn't use it for the other purchases, why give the bank a way of wriggling out of things?

Having said that, I've found the Northern Bank helpful regarding card fraud - a couple of years ago they contacted me to say there was a suspicious payment on my mastercard, and that they were blocking the card - it turns out the card had been cloned (I hadn't used it for a few months, and this happened several days after I used it in House of Fraser in Victoria Square :eek:). They issued me a new card very quickly, and at no stage were they blaming me for anything.

As for paypal, I've used them many times for ebay, and haven't had any problems. It's possible the card was cloned after some unrelated purchase, and not the paypal one.

smokiewater

Have read the op twice and remain a bit confused.

We use paypal for both selling and buying - through ebay and as a payment method on our own website, and have never had a problem with it - but you only link your card to the account once, why would you need to add your dads card details again if it was already linked to the paypal account, it says it had been used before on paypal but not in a while?

Seems strange that you needed to add the details again, unless you were paying the seller directly and not through paypal, but don't know if you can do this with ebay purchases, I am sure someone will know though.

As for the bank, I agree that they are normally pretty sharp with these types of fraud, we had a problem a while back and it was sorted out really quickly.

Hope you get it sorted.

burkey38

Thanks for the advice, what I meant was that the card details had been registered on my paypal account for a long time and I hadnt used Paypal for months. I didnt have to give them the card details again.

Also as I mentioned, the same thing happened to my uncle 1 day after he made his one and only purchase on paypal.

Do you guys think that this is just a coincidence and paypal is not to blame?

dmxdave

Have been using PayPal for years using different cards and never had a problem, touch wood lol

Lobell

Have used Paypal for years too, with no issues.

however, I was contacted recently by Northern Bank as they had detected 'suspicious activity' on my visa card. They suspended the card immediately and then cancelled it as soon as I confirmed that I had no made the transactions. All handled very quickly and professionally by Northern Bank.

dodo69

Full marks to Northern with me too - they picked up fraudulent attempted use of my Mastercard after I bought £18 of makeup from LUSH for my daughter. LUSH had their records hacked and used my card details. Check if you have bought anything from them!

drew2k9

Northern Bank seem on top of this quite well, i rang up once to make sure my direct debit had gone out, and they asked me about a new direct debit coming out making sure i was aware of it as it had a strange name, it was my first motorbike insurance payment, and i was pleased that they actually asked me as it was new.

hazelc56

burkey38 wrote: »

With my Dad's permission I used my father's Northern Bank Visa card to buy a memory card on ebay, payment for which was processed through Paypal.

My father received his card statement yesterday and as well as the purchase I made there were two other transactions on the card, one made on JohnLewis.com and the other from M&S.

Obviously I nor he know nothing about these transactions. He cancelled the card yesterday and was told to go into his local Northern Bank branch tomorrow to advise them of whats happened and to see if there are any other unknown transactions that might appear on the next statement.

My feeling is that it's something to day with a paypal employee who has access to cardholder's details. This card had not been used through paypal for a long time and the suspicious transactions appeared the day after my ebay purchase.

The same thing happened to my uncle at Christmas when he made a purchase through paypal for the first time and then his card was used the next day for £700 of goods he knew nothing about.

These tranactions were investigated by the card company and reversed.

When my father contacted John Lewis about the purchase made from their website, all they could tell him was that it was delivered to a postal address in the South of England.

My nagging doubt is this. If my father goes to his brach tomorrow to discuss what's happened and he tells them that he let me use the card for a paypal payment will they say oh thats too bad, you shouldnt have done that and theres nothing we can do?

Any advice appreciated.

You should also inform EBAY about this.