Nationwide debit card cloned, lots of money taken from our account - advice please

14pink

We received call from Nationwide yesterday saying there had been fraudulent activity on our account and several payments have gone through. In total they have tried to take £10,000 but not all were successful as we didn't have that much in there, but they still took all we had and have taken our account overdrawn.

Nationwide are due to call us tomorrow hopefully with a successful conclusion to this, but obviously it is quite a worry and I was wondering whether anyone else had been a victim of this and if so, whether they had any advice at all.

I was also interested in any information or resources where I can read up on how to stop this happening again.

Thank you.

meer53

I'd be a bit concerned that Nationwide are calling you tomorrow ! Whats wrong with today ? Are they waiting for transactions to debit ?

If the transactions are nothing to do with you, you will be refunded in full, including any charges incurred. Even if Nationwide know how this has happened, they won't be able to tell you.

It's practically impossible these days to prevent this happening, just put it behind you.

James

You may like to visit the Action Fraud Website. You'll get lots of good advice here.

Why not ask Nationwide:

What information of has been compromised? (Apart from your card details, Name, Address, Date of Birth) etc

If Nationwide have reported this to the Police? If not why not?

Should you report it to the Police?

Their answers (if you get them) will be interesting.

Good luck

p00hsticks

My partners mother had a number of fraudulent transactions on her account a few year back - Nationwide were very good in that they quickly identified that the transactions were potentially dodgy, contacted her to confirm that they were not made with her authorisation and then credited the account with the money taken within a few days.

It helped in her case that she only ever used her card to withdraw cash for her local ATM ,so a sudden glut of transactions paying for hotels in Italy and foreign flights stuck out like a sore thumb.

However, as far as I am aware there was no suggestion that her card had physically been cloned.

Rupert_Bear

14pink wrote: »

We received call from Nationwide yesterday saying there had been fraudulent activity on our account and several payments have gone through. In total they have tried to take £10,000 but not all were successful as we didn't have that much in there, but they still took all we had and have taken our account overdrawn.

Nationwide are due to call us tomorrow hopefully with a successful conclusion to this, but obviously it is quite a worry and I was wondering whether anyone else had been a victim of this and if so, whether they had any advice at all.

I was also interested in any information or resources where I can read up on how to stop this happening again.

Thank you.

Ring NW to confirm you were called by them!

Bloomberg

14pink wrote: »

We received call from Nationwide yesterday saying there had been fraudulent activity on our account and several payments have gone through. In total they have tried to take £10,000 but not all were successful as we didn't have that much in there, but they still took all we had and have taken our account overdrawn.

Nationwide are due to call us tomorrow hopefully with a successful conclusion to this, but obviously it is quite a worry and I was wondering whether anyone else had been a victim of this and if so, whether they had any advice at all.

I was also interested in any information or resources where I can read up on how to stop this happening again.

Thank you.

Personally I never use my debit card in shops or on line so as to protect my own money. If a credit card is cloned it is a lot less hassle as the banks money is at stake. Going forward it would be a good idea to use a credit card for all purchases and then pay the balance in full each month.

There is not really a great deal you can do about the present situation apart from wait and see what the Nationwide say and do. Some banks claim that they refund fraud victims within two hours and then investigate, I am not sure what the Nationwide policy is. All the best.

NFH

Bloomberg wrote: »

Personally I never use my debit card in shops or on line so as to protect my own money. If a credit card is cloned it is a lot less hassle as the banks money is at stake. Going forward it would be a good idea to use a credit card for all purchases and then pay the balance in full each month.

Very good advice. It also nearly always costs more to pay by debit card than by credit card, given that you pay 100% of the transaction amount with debit card, but don't need to pay more than 99% of the transaction amount with a credit card (because of cashback, points or miles etc). I can't understand why so many people use debit cards, but they're subsidising me as a credit card user, so I shouldn't complain.

Bloomberg

NFH wrote: »

Very good advice. It also nearly always costs more to pay by debit card than by credit card, given that you pay 100% of the transaction amount with debit card, but don't need to pay more than 99% of the transaction amount with a credit card (because of cashback, points or miles etc). I can't understand why so many people use debit cards, but they're subsidising me as a credit card user, so I shouldn't complain.

I too cannot understand why people use debit cards, credit cards if used properly are fantastic. I seldom use cash, credit cards also act as an excellent spending diary. Petrol stations seem to be notorious for card cloning, I cringe when I see someone using a debit card when they are paying for fuel.

The person who started this thread knows only too well how stressful having your debit card cloned can be, hopefully they will protect themselves by using a credit card.

System

Bloomberg wrote: »

If a credit card is cloned it is a lot less hassle as the banks money is at stake.

If there are fraudulent transactions on your credit card account, you have to persuade your credit card provider that the transactions were fraudulent, and possibly wait for your account to be credited until the fraud department has investigated.
If there are fraudulent transactions on your current account (by purported use of your debit card or otherwise) you are entitled to an immediate correction, because your bank did not have your authority to remove the funds from your account. If the fraudster has managed to obtain cash, then it is the bank, not you, who is the victim. If the fraudster has obtained goods, then the bank and the seller can argue about who is going to be the victim.
Banks (and Home Secretaries in the bad old days when they were trying to foist 'identity cards' on us) like to fog that, by pretending that you are the victim of a non-existent crime called 'identity fraud'. And banks like to pretend that they are doing you a favour by refunding you payments they did not have your authority to make. The police know better, and won't be interested if you inform them (unless, for example, your card was stolen, when they may investigate the theft). For reasons I do not understand, the banks are wet about getting the police to track down fraudsters, even when it would apparently be easy to do so.

Bloomberg

YoungNick wrote: »

If there are fraudulent transactions on your credit card account, you have to persuade your credit card provider that the transactions were fraudulent, and possibly wait for your account to be credited until the fraud department has investigated.
If there are fraudulent transactions on your current account (by purported use of your debit card or otherwise) you are entitled to an immediate correction, because your bank did not have your authority to remove the funds from your account. If the fraudster has managed to obtain cash, then it is the bank, not you, who is the victim. If the fraudster has obtained goods, then the bank and the seller can argue about who is going to be the victim.
Banks (and Home Secretaries in the bad old days when they were trying to foist 'identity cards' on us) like to fog that, by pretending that you are the victim of a non-existent crime called 'identity fraud'. And banks like to pretend that they are doing you a favour by refunding you payments they did not have your authority to make. The police know better, and won't be interested if you inform them (unless, for example, your card was stolen, when they may investigate the theft). For reasons I do not understand, the banks are wet about getting the police to track down fraudsters, even when it would apparently be easy to do so.

I know someone who had a credit card cloned, it took about a week to establish which transactions were fraudulent. He said that had his own money been taken (with a debit card) then the stress of the whole affair would have been much worse. After the matter was cleared up a personal banker told him that the bank advise customers not to keep any more than £500 in their current accounts. In your opinion which offers more security? A debit card or a credit card.

meer53

Doesn't matter whether it's debit or credit card fraud. If the transactions were not made by you, you will be refunded in full.

If it's credit card fraud then it's the banks money which has been stolen. Thats why you won't be held liable. (unless you're involved) There's no difference really between credit and debit card fraud.

If it's debit card fraud, under PSD regulations, the banks are obliged to refund you whilst they carry out their investigations. If they have evidence that you are involved in any way, they may re debit you at a later date.

Cards can be compromised anywhere you use them. If you want to avoid the risk of this happening, the only way is to pay cash for everything and not use cards at all.

For a bank to advise customers how much to keep in their account is ridiculous, they're just covering their ars*s by saying this.

The banks don't need to track down fraudsters in the majority of cases as they get their money back from the retailers concerned by actioning chargebacks. It's the retailers who lose out in the end mainly.