Debit Card Fraud

2sides2everystory

Surely this has NOTHING whatsoever to do with "Terms and Conditions"?

This has to do with abuse of the banking industry's Continuous Payment/Card Authority system (CPA or CCA) doesn't it?

The OP says when he presented his card he was asked to use CHIP & PIN.

Unless that system requested a signature, surely that does not necessitate nor permit the merchant to use other data on the card for any purpose whatsoever so they are instantly in breach of Data Protection legislation if they take such data and store it without permission without an explicit additional transaction / agreement taking place.

In practice it is impossible to cause gym staff to explain properly two transactions in one like this. They are simply instructed to take the data and most of them have probably never heard of a Continuous Authority or how it works. So this has all the markings of a deliberate confidence trick played on new customers generally, doesn't it?

chattychappy

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Surely this has NOTHING whatsoever to do with "Terms and Conditions"?

Disagree. The T+Cs might allow them to use card details in their possession for further transactions. I agree a bit dubious if all you did was put your card into a PDQ machine.

The onus of proof is on the merchant that a transaction is authorised. So really it should be possible to dispute this.

The other point about the T+Cs is that if the contract is still running,then the money might be owed anyway.

meer53

chattychappy wrote: »

Disagree. The T+Cs might allow them to use card details in their possession for further transactions. I agree a bit dubious if all you did was put your card into a PDQ machine.

The onus of proof is on the merchant that a transaction is authorised. So really it should be possible to dispute this.

The other point about the T+Cs is that if the contract is still running,then the money might be owed anyway.

I disagree too. The OP has probably agreed to a membership contract with Fitness First. Both parties are bound by that contract so whether FF have done anything wrong depends on what the Terms and Conditions say.

2sides2everystory

If you work in a bank, meer53 then it is none of your business what the gym contract says. It is the abuse of the bank's payment system you need to think about carefully - nothing more and nothing less.

meer53

2sides2everystory wrote: »

If you work in a bank, meer53 then it is none of your business what the gym contract says. It is the abuse of the bank's payment system you need to think about carefully - nothing more and nothing less.

I do work in a bank. The OP is asking for advice. It would be my business if the OP came to me to dispute the second payment which FF had taken. I would then have to ask the OP to provide me with a copy of their Terms and Conditions before i could take on the dispute.
No one can say that there has been any "abuse" of any system. Thats a ridiculous statement to make.

I don't need to think carefully about anything, i know my job and see this every day.People who sign up for gym memberships without reading what they're actually agreeing to. Yes, we do dispute payments like this but the dispute frequently fails as they represent the dispute with a copy of their Terms and Conditions ! All legitimate and above board, no abuse of any payment systems. Just customers who provide their card details willy nilly. Not saying this is whats happened in the OP's case but it usually is.

2sides2everystory

Of course you work for a bank. Takes one to know one sometimes, doesn't it? But then again sometimes it is bleedin' obvious because you wave it like a banner. So there's perhaps a real big difference between you and me. You see I don't just always do what I am told is best for my employer, and especially when I see wrong has been done. Customers don't visit banks if they can help it. They are generally not inspiring places to visit, are they? So unless customers have met with indeterminate cashflow difficulties (and I have read your views on how such people had better conduct themselves everso nicely if they appear in your presence) the only reason they might be physically in the bank is either to make a special transaction that cannot be done any other way or because something is wrong and they want your help to fix it. People's lives are too short to go to banks and claim these sort of wrongs unless there is a genuine belief of a wrong, and it doesn't help if the first thing the bank points to is the merchant's Ts & Cs and then sucks their teeth.

You say you know your job and yet you don't even seem to have stopped to question why it is you see so many Continuous Authority abuses which cause untold damage to large numbers of customers, frequently wrongfooting them in their cashflow planning, thus causing charges to be incurred.

You don't even see them as abuses, meer53. If it looks like an abuse and quacks like one then that's what it is. You do not need to see gym membership T & Cs or argue the toss over the printed word to press the customer's case for him or her as the bank. You form a judgement about right and wrong and then you help the customer. Whilst we've got these damned Continuous Authorities, about which maybe only 0.001% of the banking public have any understanding of at all, then sure, your Head Office can argue the toss on small print with merchants who have sailed close to the wind, but not you with the customer. The bank is in a position centrally to say either directly or to the merchant's own bank, "Now look here Mr Merchant, we have had 500 complaints this quarter about your particular use of CPA/CCA. Cease and desist." For you to instead deflect every such complaint back on to the customer is quite wrong.

I say again, it is not the bank's job to uphold any merchant's Ts & Cs. It is the bank's job to help the customer right the wrong and PDQ too, once it becomes clear that the customer has tried for a month to get the wrong righted direct with the merchant and failed.

Banks are already in enough deep water for tricks of their own without having staff who act as apologists for merchant's nefarious Ts and Cs and/or their very dubious practices like taking CHIP & PIN AND recording extra data for a Continuous Payment which was never part of the deal the customer thought he or she did.

And by the way, at what stage would you record the customer complaint officially for a visit such as that by the OP?

Meantime I would be interested in your opinion on whether Continuous Payments are bad news for consumers and should be outlawed?

FullTimeBadMan

2sides2everystory wrote: »

And by the way, at what stage would you record the customer complaint officially for a visit such as that by the OP?

Meantime I would be interested in your opinion on whether Continuous Payments are bad news for consumers and should be outlawed?

1.) If they said they wanted to register a complaint, seperate to the dispute.
2.) No.

Plenty of people have CPAs that work for them. If people actually took the time to read through the agreements (notice the word, 'agree' in there?) they were signing up for in there, rather than blithely scrawling on the dotted line and assuming it will all be fine, they wouldn't find themselves in such a mess.

It is absolutely the bank's job to facilitate entirely legal transactions, even if one party doesn't like it. Banks are not your solicitors and have absolutely no precedent to interfere with your contracts with companies.

pqrdef

iancmitch wrote: »

I havent agreed to it, and I have the bank looking into it, I just dont know how they used my debit card details as I am not aware that chip and pin machines store this info for them to use again? if this is so then that is dangerous

Storing the pin won't help them, you might have changed it. But if they claim to have a CPA, they don't need a pin, or a CVV, or an expiry date. They don't even need an up to date card number - they can continue taking payments against an expired card and a dead card number, and even a closed account.

Before buying any sort of membership / subscription / insurance / service that is in principle renewable, it's essential to find out what the renewal and cancellation arrangements are, because the default is pretty much to sign you up for life, or longer if possible. Sadly this applies to Direct Debits as well now, because they can claim to have continuous authority to reinstate DD mandates.

meer53

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Of course you work for a bank. Takes one to know one sometimes, doesn't it? But then again sometimes it is bleedin' obvious because you wave it like a banner. So there's perhaps a real big difference between you and me. You see I don't just always do what I am told is best for my employer, and especially when I see wrong has been done. Customers don't visit banks if they can help it. They are generally not inspiring places to visit, are they? So unless customers have met with indeterminate cashflow difficulties (and I have read your views on how such people had better conduct themselves everso nicely if they appear in your presence) the only reason they might be physically in the bank is either to make a special transaction that cannot be done any other way or because something is wrong and they want your help to fix it. People's lives are too short to go to banks and claim these sort of wrongs unless there is a genuine belief of a wrong, and it doesn't help if the first thing the bank points to is the merchant's Ts & Cs and then sucks their teeth.

You say you know your job and yet you don't even seem to have stopped to question why it is you see so many Continuous Authority abuses which cause untold damage to large numbers of customers, frequently wrongfooting them in their cashflow planning, thus causing charges to be incurred.

You don't even see them as abuses, meer53. If it looks like an abuse and quacks like one then that's what it is. You do not need to see gym membership T & Cs or argue the toss over the printed word to press the customer's case for him or her as the bank. You form a judgement about right and wrong and then you help the customer. Whilst we've got these damned Continuous Authorities, about which maybe only 0.001% of the banking public have any understanding of at all, then sure, your Head Office can argue the toss on small print with merchants who have sailed close to the wind, but not you with the customer. The bank is in a position centrally to say either directly or to the merchant's own bank, "Now look here Mr Merchant, we have had 500 complaints this quarter about your particular use of CPA/CCA. Cease and desist." For you to instead deflect every such complaint back on to the customer is quite wrong.

I say again, it is not the bank's job to uphold any merchant's Ts & Cs. It is the bank's job to help the customer right the wrong and PDQ too, once it becomes clear that the customer has tried for a month to get the wrong righted direct with the merchant and failed.

Banks are already in enough deep water for tricks of their own without having staff who act as apologists for merchant's nefarious Ts and Cs and/or their very dubious practices like taking CHIP & PIN AND recording extra data for a Continuous Payment which was never part of the deal the customer thought he or she did.

And by the way, at what stage would you record the customer complaint officially for a visit such as that by the OP?

Meantime I would be interested in your opinion on whether Continuous Payments are bad news for consumers and should be outlawed?

I've stated the facts from the banks point of view, these are stated due to my experience of this type of dispute (which you seem to have a problem with) I'm sorry if my experience offends you.

To clarify, banks don't have agreements with merchants, so it is impossible for them to approach a retailer to discuss the amount of disputes with them. That job would be down to Visa International who log every dispute which is initiated. The banks don't write the regulations for disputes either, again that would be Visa International, they issue regulations to every financial institution who accept Visa payments. If Visa ask for copies of Terms and Conditions thenh banks have to comply with that request or the dispute will be rejected at the start.

CRA's are a good idea for the majority of people who actually take the time to read what they're agreeing to when they sign up. You find the only people who complain about them are the ones who don't do this.

Finally, this type of query wouldn't be logged as a complaint, it's a dispute. The OP's complaint is against the merchant, not the bank. The bank do their job by helping the customer dispute the transaction, if it fails because the customer has not understood what they've agreed to, whose fault is that ? If the customer has a complaint agains the bank then it would be logged straight away.

2sides2everystory

If they said they wanted to register a complaint, seperate to the dispute.

Finally, this type of query wouldn't be logged as a complaint, it's a dispute.

Both of you are quite wrong. You are obliged by the FSA to record a visit by the customer or a telephone call about a matter such as this as a complaint. What's more, it seems neither of you have either the knowledge or the authority to deal with the matter to any proper conclusion so in every case a complaint not only should be recorded by you, it should be escalated to your head office. But you don't do either.

Fact is you have both made it plain that you see these same problems day in and day out and that you palm customers off with your incorrect views and non-compiant complaints handling. You are skewing FSA complaint statistics by doing so.

I believe you should be ashamed of yourselves, and of the known effects of Continuous Payments, but I accept you probably don't for one moment understand why.

I guess it would take someone like me to see the customer the next time they come in, relating their experience with you, to record both problems and make that two complaints requiring escalation.

I don't expect you would get much comeback however from that, because banks only pay lipservice to compliance issues, and see employees like me as a pain. You are probably part of the breed which gets praise for spending as little time as possible on customers problems and concentrating on flogging them something else whilst they have your attention.

More than two ways of running a bank, eh ?

BTW Of course banks have agreements with merchants. Who else provides them with card processing facilities ? Visa International ? You mean I as a merchant can go direct to them and cut out my business bankers ? Don't be silly. It is the merchant services banks who enforce Visa International's rules (or in this case do not) with regard to how the Continuous Payment authorities are set up compliantly.