Debit card fraud using pin

Casa_125

bert&ernie wrote: »

Hmmm

The section that you selected to quote doesn't explicitly state what you wanted to infer from it. Furthermore, if you looked around a little you might have found this:



and



The legality and fairness of any fee is a separate matter, but the issuer is not obliged in any way to decline the transaction.

Hello, thanks for taking the time on this, will be digesting everything all you lovely folks are contributing in our quest for fairness by Santander.

masonic

Only_Visiting wrote: »

But the consumer doesn't have a contract with Visa, even if the marketing material is aimed at them.

As far as I understand contract law, an invitation to treat (such as advertising) cannot deliberately include terms that are materially different from the contract that ensues on its basis. I haven't read the entire text of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, but my impression is that they were designed specifically with this kind of misrepresentation in mind.

Again, I don't have expertise in the area- this is just my impression of the legal situation. I have been involved in a couple of claims which I handled pro se, but they weren't about the exact same thing.

I think where we disagree is that I don't believe that Visa's statement is deliberately designed to mislead people - at worst the wording is just sloppy. It would be extremely difficult to demonstrate intent to mislead. As you have said, Visa do not deal directly with the public and bank customers get a bank-specific Visa-branded card as an added service when opening a current account. Cards therefore come with their own set of terms that are tailored to the facilities of the bank account that has been opened. Therefore, the terms of the overdraft facility available from your bank are relevant in defining what is meant by an authorised overdraft. If the overdraft is 'flexible' in this regard, then all bets are off.

Personally, I don't like the idea of banks allowing people to go further into debt than has been agreed, but the fact remains that pretty much every full Visa Debit card that has been issued in the last 20 years or so comes with this ability, so if there was a legal case for Visa to answer, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Casa_125

vax2002 wrote: »

A research student published a paper showing how to intercept the pin number and card data using a 50p transmitter and two pins fitted inside the chip and pin machine linked to a wireless laptop.
The banks failed to obtain an injunction on the publication of this university paper, it proved that banks new as long ago as 2007 that the system was floored when they opted for cheaper security, that they knew that the data can be intercepted along with the algorithmic key to decipher it and that the practice was in use already by fraudster gangs operating in nightclubs, petrol stations, shops + restaurants.
Google the Omar Choudary research papers and send it to the bank, not that they dont know already . YET STILL THEY LIE and blame the customer.

Blimey! Very interesting, thank you for this advice. Will check out the research, There MUST be an explanation to this situation but whether we can prove it or not remains to be seen. Gloves are on, round 1

Casa_125

Only_Visiting wrote: »

But the consumer doesn't have a contract with Visa, even if the marketing material is aimed at them.

As far as I understand contract law, an invitation to treat (such as advertising) cannot deliberately include terms that are materially different from the contract that ensues on its basis. I haven't read the entire text of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, but my impression is that they were designed specifically with this kind of misrepresentation in mind.

Again, I don't have expertise in the area- this is just my impression of the legal situation. I have been involved in a couple of claims which I handled pro se, but they weren't about the exact same thing.

Brilliant, thanks! Do hope your impression of the legal situation is right, I hate misrepresentation and this is all starting to give us food for thought with our endeavours to get the money back. Cheers:)

bert&ernie

masonic wrote: »

I think where we disagree is that I don't believe that Visa's statement is deliberately designed to mislead people - at worst the wording is just sloppy. It would be extremely difficult to demonstrate intent to mislead. As you have said, Visa do not deal directly with the public and bank customers get a bank-specific Visa-branded card as an added service when opening a current account. Cards therefore come with their own set of terms that are tailored to the facilities of the bank account that has been opened. Therefore, the terms of the overdraft facility available from your bank are relevant in defining what is meant by an authorised overdraft. If the overdraft is 'flexible' in this regard, then all bets are off.

Personally, I don't like the idea of banks allowing people to go further into debt than has been agreed, but the fact remains that pretty much every full Visa Debit card that has been issued in the last 20 years or so comes with this ability, so if there was a legal case for Visa to answer, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Agree with this. You would need a strong argument and some case law to make this work. I also think that the claimant would need to accept that the transactions were legitimate in order to argue breach of contract.

Probably best to pursue a fraud based complaint first and take that to the ombudsman if Santander wont budge.

Only_Visiting

masonic wrote: »

I think where we disagree is that I don't believe that Visa's statement is deliberately designed to mislead people - at worst the wording is just sloppy. It would be extremely difficult to demonstrate intent to mislead.

We agree on this. My view of the situation is that the bank misleads customers by selling them a debit card then 'magically' making it function as a credit one in order to pocket the fees from the transaction and/or charges from the resultant 'unarranged' overdraft. In any event, you won't have a contract with Visa, so you can't really claim against them for anything.

Unlike a bounced check/direct debit, a refused debit card transaction doesn't really cost the bank anything, so there is no way to justify it. If the likes of Santander aren't happy with their contracts with Visa (or Mastercard as the case might be), they can try setting up their own payment systems...

Casa_125

masonic wrote: »

I think where we disagree is that I don't believe that Visa's statement is deliberately designed to mislead people - at worst the wording is just sloppy. It would be extremely difficult to demonstrate intent to mislead. As you have said, Visa do not deal directly with the public and bank customers get a bank-specific Visa-branded card as an added service when opening a current account. Cards therefore come with their own set of terms that are tailored to the facilities of the bank account that has been opened. Therefore, the terms of the overdraft facility available from your bank are relevant in defining what is meant by an authorised overdraft. If the overdraft is 'flexible' in this regard, then all bets are off.

Personally, I don't like the idea of banks allowing people to go further into debt than has been agreed, but the fact remains that pretty much every full Visa Debit card that has been issued in the last 20 years or so comes with this ability, so if there was a legal case for Visa to answer, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Hello, really enjoying all the learning on this topic. It is wrong that banks allow you to go overdrawn when you do not have an arranged overdraft. But think how much money they make from it and its no surprise. My son's card was a Visa Debit Card and will take a close look at the Visa website. I wonder if Visa have EVER had a legal case to answer in this scenario, would be very interesting to know the outcome if they have. Thank you for your time.

Only_Visiting

bert&ernie wrote: »

I also think that the claimant would need to accept that the transactions were legitimate in order to argue breach of contract.

The line of reasoning I would follow would be something like:

"part of the reason why I got a debit card as opposed to a credit one was the promise given by Visa to only allow transactions up to the value of my account balance, therefore minimising my potential downside in case of fraud/misuse".

Of course, I agree that this reasoning should only be used after the bank having completed their investigation and rejected the possibility of fraud, but Santander UK are a shower of the proverbial, so I'd just hammer from as many angles as possible.

meer53

The problem the OP's son has is that his bank will look at the circumstances of the "unauthorised" payments and regardless of whether he made them or not, he will have a hard time proving that he didn't. He was in a bar, used his card for 2 transactions, authorised these by inputting his PIN, then 2 more transactions, in the same bar, also verified by PIN which he denies making. I've seen this situation so many times before and it is usually a case of either the customer not checking the amount they're agreeing to before inputting the PIN or the card being used by someone else and replaced without the customers knowledge. It will not be a counterfeit card, you never see counterfeit transactions made at the same retailer where the details were compromised, plus in this case, there wasn't time for this to happen and the PIN was used. In the 17 years i've worked in Fraud i've never seen a counterfeit card (and i've seen thousands) which was chip read.
I hope the OP's son does get his money back but i feel Santander will dig their heels in. They have to use the information they have available to them which all points to negligence on the customers part. Sorry, but this is how they will look at it.

Casa_125

meer53 wrote: »

You might find that Santander will allow your son to go overdrawn due to an unadvised limit which most banks have. This is a set amount over and above an agreed limit (or even if there is no agreed limit) which allows for transactions to be authorised even if no funds are available. Customers don't usually know about this facility as the banks don't like to let people know it's there. Some banks call it an expansion limit. If your son had used his card in other places before the bar, the fraud detection system might have been slower to pick up on these transactions as it will have recognised that he was using the card abroad. As they were PIN verified this could be the reason why he wasn't called, the system gets suspicious if there are invalid PIN attempts, have you asked Santander whether these transactions reported on their systems ? Our fraud detection system would show these amounts and whether an alert had been created and if not, why. The other thing to look at is whether Santander had your sons mobile number to call him on and whether they could get through to him if they did.

Hello, just reading through all the info and didn't spot this post first time around! My son only used the card on that date 21st June, and made 2 transactions on his Visa debit card using the pin. It would be very interesting to know if the following 4 fraudulent transactions reported on the Santander system and if not, why? The bank do have his mobile number as they called him the day after he discovered the fraud to ask when he woiuld be putting his account back into credit!!