Credit Card Fraud of £5000 - HELP!!

tintin123_2

Hi,

I moved out of the country from UK in January 2011 and currently living abroad. Recently, I discovered that my UK credit card (Virgin Atlantic American Express) has been misused and cash to the amount of £5000 has been withdrawn in the month of July. All along the credit card was with me and I was not even in UK.

I discovered this only in September when I noticed the balance on my statement and called the customer care to enquire. I reported it immediately with customer care and Virgin immediately blocked my credit card then.

I have tried to contact the customer care several times and they say that security/fraud team will contact me but i dont hear anything back from them. Now, I have received another statement online which says that I have a balance of £5200. They continue to put interest charges on the balance.

I dont live in UK anymore. How do I handle this with the company. Ofcourse I dont want to pay as I was not even in the country when the fraud happened.

Am I liable to pay this balance? Where can I get some legal help?

Many thanks

opinions4u

You ring them again and register a complaint, asking them to deal with it. Free.

You escalate the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman (FOS). Free.

Am I liable to pay this balance?

If you haven't made the transaction and have been in no way negligent with card / PIN / other information, no.

Where can I get some legal help?

A solicitor. But I'd exhaust the FOS system first.

salau2

Have you reported the crime to the Police? If not you should and get a crime reference number and then give that to your credit card provider.

meer53

You don't need legal help at the moment, you need your CC issuer to deal with the fraud first. Did they have up to date contact details for you when you left the UK ? They may have been trying to contact you. You would only escalate the problem if your CC issuer can't sort it out for you.

tintin123_2

thanks folks.. really helpful. would contact the cc fraud dept first thing tomorrow morning. i may have an issue with my contact details not fully upto date.. would that be a major issue in terms of liability of this fraud amount?

Also, if i dont pay this disputed balance - what happens then? i am not planning to return to UK for next 3 to 5 years. How long will this stay in my credit history record?

meer53

tintin123 wrote: »

thanks folks.. really helpful. would contact the cc fraud dept first thing tomorrow morning. i may have an issue with my contact details not fully upto date.. would that be a major issue in terms of liability of this fraud amount?

Also, if i dont pay this disputed balance - what happens then? i am not planning to return to UK for next 3 to 5 years. How long will this stay in my credit history record?

Your CC issuer may have been trying to contact you for some time to discuss this which may explain why the card was not blocked sooner. If you didn't respond to their messages etc, they would assume that you've seen your statements and that the withdrawals were yours.
With regard to liability, only your CC issuer can advise you. Once you have confirmed fraud with your CC issuer, they should refund your account (including any fees) whilst their investigation is ongoing. This won't affect your credit history unlesss you've defaulted on the repayments.

agrinnall

How was the cash withdrawn, was it from ATMs or some other method? If it was ATM then you've got a fight on your hands as that requires the card PIN to be known and Amex will assume that you have somehow disclosed that to a third party. In fact I can't think of any way to get cash from a credit card without a PIN these days, have they said whether it was PIN authorised?