credit card fraud? have you been done recently?

**purplemoon**

smartie1976 wrote:

Quite simply I will never use my credit or debit card at a petrol station which is not linked to a supermarket to be on the safe side. I mostly try to pay at the pump anyway, and find Asda the most secure as they require you to type in your chip&pin number (whereas tesco don't). Quite frankly this is often the cheapest price petrol anyway.
I appreciate this is less useful for people who travel a lot or don't live near a supermarket. However, cover up the little handset when typing in your pin to avoid problems.

If I have to stop i will always pay cash (I always keep around £5 in the ash tray for such emergencies)
Some may think this a little anal but I have yet to be hit with any kind of cloned card or fraudulent transactions, and I call it positive prevention.

I only ever use cash in petrol stations.

mr_nick wrote:

i think if everyone shredded their bank statements and till receipts etc rather than putting them in the bin, they'd be a lot fewer fraudulant transactions!

I shred everything with my name, adress, bank details etc on.

C_Ronaldo wrote:

alsoif people covered up the keypad at the atm would help, and buy stuff from secure sites too

I do that too. I cover the terminal pad so no one can see my number and only ever shop online in places like Tesco, Argos, Amazon, Boots etc that are supposed to be reputable.

So, i take every precaution necessary so you tell me how they got my details cos not even my OH knows my pin nos and I don't know his either.

**purplemoon**

Bargainbabe wrote:

Well I haven't got a clue how the fraudsters got my card details. I used my Egg card once to buy a washing machine from Dixons. Next thing I know, there's about 5 different transactions that I didn't make. My pooter is like Fort Knox, I have every gizmo to keep it safe, so it looks like I was just mega unlucky.
Anyway, it did get sorted and I wasn't liable for anything.
Thank god I used a credit card and not my debit!

I've shopped at Dixons in last few mths too, meant to be a secure site but now I wonder!

BrunoM

Mr_Gordon wrote:

Back in may I had about a dozen transactions, mostly for airline tickets but one on 'India's biggest matrimonial website' I can only guess the guy got married then went 11 honeymoons. Card was changed and transactions all treated as fraud. It's not been that straight forward though as I've had to call the fraud dept quite a few times since due to pending transactions coming up over three statements.

Most recently I received a letter in the post from Germany, seemingly from one of the merchants this fraudster used my card. They had added lots of late fees to this transaction and were threating me with legal action!
This was all on my Amazon Mastercard, who I have to say have been pretty helpful with the whole thing except for the one guy on customer services who basically told me 'the legal action bit, go sort it out yourself it's not for us to do it'. The fraud dept did however want to see the letter and have assured me they have been in contact again with the airline and I'll have no further letters.

It's certainly not the most pleasant of things to go through.

While I agree with most everything posted on this thread regarding precautions and risks etc,

last year I took out an Amazon MasterCard (purely for purposes of some balance transferring from an old card). On opening I transferred the balance to it, which as it happened still left it with maybe £1.5k limit available.

Now this card arrived in the post, the PIN arrived in the post, and I never used it at all. The only thing I ever did with it was phone them to activate the card, after that it simply sat beside my PC desk, in my bedroom, in my family house. The PIN letter I stuck into my 'filing system', without even having opened the PIN security concealment label.

A couple months later, my statement materialised with a chain of fraudulent expenditures - a lot spent on the London congestion charge for some reason (like, hundreds of pounds), a couple of first-class Air France tickets, and one or two small one-off items, maybe £1.2k total over around 10 days spending.

Obviously I reported it straight away, was posted a letter to sign that none of these transactions were anything to do with me, got a complete refund and never heard anything about it again. But really, .... !!!!!!? I had and still have no clue how this could happen, bar some peculiar criminal within Halifax (iirc it was Halifax that administered the card). Was weird.

LittleWoman_3

Hi All, thought I'd add my bit too!

I've had a Goldfish card for 15 yrs, but only use it for my paypal account. I've not used my Paypal account for over 6 months. At the beggining of Oct. paypal sent me an e-mail saying there were some odd transactions on my account - I deleted it, as I get lots of e-mails from e-bay, paypal - pshing I think they are called, and so I just delete them. Then My Goldfish statement turned up, 4 identical transactions of £72 on the same day, from my paypal account. I immediately rang Goldfish, told them to stop the card and reported the transactions. Told them I was going to cut up the card, and as I don't use it anyway, would not need a new card. Contacted Paypal, who immediately refunded the money - within 48hrs of reporting it. I thought that was that - unfortunetely Goldfish transfered the debit balance to a new card. I rang them up, and they confirmed that there was a credit balance on the old card. They agree to transfer the credit balance to the new card and close the card, which I cut up. A month later I get a letter telling me that I have not made any contributions to the 2nd card, and there were charging me for non payment and interest. (I never received a statement for this) I rang them up, and they confirmed the credit on the first card had not been transfered. They tried to insist I should clear the 2nd card, to stop the charges. After a long discussion they agreed to transfer (again) the credit from the old card to clear the 2nd card. The also told me that they may continue to send me statements with outstanding balances as other charges may automatically "kick" in while they are sorting it out.

If this does happen, next time I intend to write (not ring) and send them an invoice for £12 (isn't that what they charge) for writing the letter, and tell them that I shall charge £12 for every letter I send until it is sorted.

Oh yes, I am also getting a letter from the fraud dept asking me to sign to confirm my report of transactions detailed on the 2nd page - except there are no transactions detailed on the 2nd page!!!!!!! Also the letter says if I don not return the letter they will presume the matter is closed - I have now had this letter 3 times.

Apart from this card, all my others (2) are not more than a few months old. The last couple of years I have been taking out new cards (0% interest on purchases) clearing the balances at the end of the period (I would pay the extra balance into a deposit account each month) and then cancel the card. I shall keep changing my cards on a regular basis. New cards have more initial security - it seems to be replacement cards that get "waylaid" in the post. And if the card does not exist anymore, no-one can take money from it!

watchtheskies

Yes, just got stung for a little over £700, someone used my debit card details over the phone, my Bank (Lloyds) blocked the card, but not until this transaction had gone through,

I only found out when I tried to use the card today, thanks Lloyds for informing me (NOT)

like many here, I shred everything, even if its just name and address, I cover the keypad on the ATM, I only use my physical card in Tesco to buy food n stuff, I have used the card online, but only Dixons, Amazon etc, no unknown sites

I have to assume that some scumbag in the chain passed on or sold my details?, how the heck can we protect ourselves from this?

I shall be using more cash from now on and maybe shop on the high street again like the old days

Primrose

Yes, we were conned in November to the tune of £1400, with further transactions after the statement was mailed out. Card never used to withdraw cash from an ATM so it must have been cloned from a terminal somewhere. Also the card never left our sight as they sometimes do in restaurants when it comes to paying the bill. Our own limited investigation has revealed that two different names of users were involved - one to book an overseas trip, and a completely different name to run up huge parking fines, perhaps these identities too are false. No idea how it happened although we do use the card in petrol stations, and believe that some months ago a large national fuel chain had to withdraw all their terminals from use and revert to paper receipts because their terminal software was allegedly tampered with. We will now be checking our credit card statements on line on a regular basis, rather than waiting for any more fraudently transactions to hit the deck once a month when the statement is issued.

erb

Before, pin and chip I was hit with one transaction for £500 then another the next day for over £5000. Both made at an electronics shop in London that I had never heard of as I live in the North West. These were made as "card holder not present" so presumably over the phone or on the internet.

To make matters worse when I rang the CC company Halifax I told them to stop the direct debit payment to them as I did not have that much in the bank. They said they would but when the day came they took the full payment by DD throwing me into a huge unauthorised overdraft. I rang the bank on the same day and explained what had happened so they stopped the DD payment.

The disputed transactions were then recorded against my new card account number as disputed items and it took 12 months to get them cleared off my account. Once cleared I closed the account and got a card from another company.

sjc_2

Barclaycard have now refunded the first £502 of my disputed transactions, just got £146 to go from two Virgin Trains ones now. Quick turn around time really done in under a month.

But now their Fraud Dept are going a bit OTT made some minor purchases yesterday over the internet £4.99 to Link £3.99 to HMV and tried a £15 to eSpares but got it bounced so had to use another CC.

Then got a call from them querying & questioning the recent transactions, which don't get me wrong is a good thing, but why not query the big transactions that stick out from my normal spending of Fuel £50 a fortnight Food £100 a week and a few DVD's & bits over the internet less than £20. So when a £502 hit comes along from a Company type I don't deal with why not call to question that?

sjc_2

& today they refunded the £146 from Virgin Trains rapid turn around from Barclaycard on returning my money.

Emperordalek1

My wife has just stopped her cahoot card after 3 dodgy transactions. Two from Hong Kong and one from the Philipines took nearly £500 from her card. This took her over her credit limit(!) and cahoot are claiming 6-9 months before money is returned.

Any advice would be welcome.