Help!! Need advice urgently:Fraudulant activity

haribol_2

Hi MSE's
I received my Visa Bill today and found numerous fraudulant entries amounting to more than £2300 from companies that I don't recognise in a space of last three/four weeks.

I only use this card as a method of payment for Call 18866, Sky and PowerGen online and shopping at major grocery stores.

Has anyone else had this problem with there cards when paying these companies?

I have spoken to the Visa company who have asked me to contact these mysterious companies on my statement and find out why they have charged me?

Is this right and what advice can anyone give. I feel sick and don't know what to do .

Sorry if this is not the right place for this thread

Many thanks in advance.

Cardinal-Red

Which card do you have?

Have you actually lodged a 'disputed transaction' with your VISA provider, or just told them you don't recognise?

I think they should probably be more proactive if you are actually disputing it!

Midas

Yes it sounds like you were just been fobbed off by the card company. If you know you definitely didn't make these transactions you need to call them and insist they look into it asap - or it could continue!

Reaper

That doesn't sound very helpful of your credit card company. If you are sure they are fraudulent then phone them back (using the lost/stolen card number, not the customer services one) and insist they cancel it and issue you a new card.

When it happened to me I did contact the company it was charged to as I wondered whether they had made a mistake, but you are not under any obligation to do so. That's their job.

Once your credit card company take you seriously you will normally need to put it in writing and about 6 weeks later you will get your money back. Make sure they refund you any interest charged on the disputed money too.

Finally... relax! You are covered by law, Visa have to refund you.

zzzLazyDaisy

I had something similar last year - I notified the card company that the transactions were fraudulent, and the card was stopped immediately. I then sent them a copy of the statement with all the fraudulent transactions highlighted, and they sent me some forms to fill in. Most were refunded pretty quickly, there were a couple that took a lot longer. In my case, all the transactions were on the internet, mainly !!!!!! Sites, apparently!!! I never discovered how it had happened.

Galstonian

Who is the card issuer? I am surprised by their reaction, if you call the number on your card for "lost or stolen" rather than customer services you may get a more appopriate response.

JimArnold

Yes the standard first response of CCCs seems to be to invite you to contact the firm - you have to push them and get them to make the items disputed.

However don't worry - keep on at them and eventually it will arive at the desk of the right person.

Galstonian

I think this must vary greatly, I don't know if that is by company or down to the individual customer service reps. I have had fraud spotted by Goldfish (two occasions), notified Nationwide of attempted fraud, had Nationwide contact me "just to check" some transactions (which were kosher) and have formally disputed a transaction with Barclaycard. All of these things were done with a minimum of fuss and dealt with to my satisfaction. The only thing I could take issue with was that Goldfish refused to give me details of the transactions they had spotted, I thought I might have been able to identify the source of the problems better than they could but they were limiting my liability to £0 and following it up themselves.

haribol_2

May I thank all of you for some good suggestions. I have since rang the Visa card company ( HALIFAX Card Services ) to say that I dispute these transactions. They then put me through their Fraud Section who agreed to sort this out for me.

I am not sure if this will be of any use, but the companies that appeared on my Statement that were fraudulant were:

ADEVA Vehicle Rent, Stoke-on-Trent ( I had many entries of this )
Budget Rent-a-Car, Peterborough
Enterprise R-A-C, Stoke-on-Trent

They have syphoned more than £2500 alltogether.

They all seem to be car rental companies.

Irony is, I have 2 cars and the only driver in the family. why would I need to hire one.

I just hope the VISA company settles this one as I felt completely stressed out and outraged at these crooks who have ruined my weekend.

Once again, thank you all for your good advice.

God Bless You

Haribol

westernpromise

haribol wrote:

ADEVA Vehicle Rent, Stoke-on-Trent ( I had many entries of this )
Budget Rent-a-Car, Peterborough
Enterprise R-A-C, Stoke-on-Trent

They have syphoned more than £2500 alltogether.

They all seem to be car rental companies.

Interesting, I imagine the cars have been rented using your card details and are now having their identities changed so they can be sold.

A few years ago I had my wallet stolen and about £6,000 was charged to my cards - 1 item at each of 30 different branches of Debenhams and Kwiksave, and in every case for £99.95. Apparently this flies under the radar, or it did. The fraud was so obvious the card companies simply cancelled them immediately.

Reaper

westernpromise wrote:

in every case for £99.95. Apparently this flies under the radar, or it did. The fraud was so obvious the card companies simply cancelled them immediately.

Ah yes. I used to work for an insurance company and word had got around in the building trade that they paid out claims for under £500 without checking them. I don't know whether it was ever true but I do know that it meant any claim for £499 from a builder was investigated extemely thoroughly!