Amazon 7 x fraudulent charges. natwest can't refund money...

george1drum

Hi everyone,

I was the victim of fraud in October through amazon where someone accessed my account and made 7 transactions to themselves of £28. Amazon let me know and said they had cancelled my account due to fraud and advised i contact my bank. I therefore contacted natwest who returned my money almost instantly after i completed the dispute forms and returned them. A couple of weeks later i had to return some more dispute forms as amazon disputed the claims of fraud with visa saying it wasn't fraud. I therefore returned the forms and heard nothing, the money was taken back out of my account and i then rang them again. Apparently they hadn't received my letter and asked me to go into the branch and get them to fax it through. I did that and again heard nothing. I then rang up again and they said i could email it to them, so i did and was told i would hear back in 5-7 working days....again i heard nothing. I rang up again and was told they hadn't received anything and that i needed to return some more forms again. they sent me the forms and with that i also got another letter saying the timeframe for visa sorting the problem was up and that i had to take legal action to get it back... I then rang up and they said i had to contact the retailer (amazon) but amazon then said i had to go through my bank.
Im pretty tired of going backwards and forwards to no success. Has anyone been through this before or does anyone know what i should do now. I have proof of the email i sent with the correct forms to natwest so can i complain my way back to my money?

Any help is massively appreciated.

vax2002

Just tell them the matter will now be passed to the financial ombudsman as the matter has become frustrated :
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/about/index.html

Once you tell them this keep your phone on, it will ring.

meer53

george1drum wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I was the victim of fraud in October through amazon where someone accessed my account and made 7 transactions to themselves of £28. Amazon let me know and said they had cancelled my account due to fraud and advised i contact my bank. I therefore contacted natwest who returned my money almost instantly after i completed the dispute forms and returned them. A couple of weeks later i had to return some more dispute forms as amazon disputed the claims of fraud with visa saying it wasn't fraud. I therefore returned the forms and heard nothing, the money was taken back out of my account and i then rang them again. Apparently they hadn't received my letter and asked me to go into the branch and get them to fax it through. I did that and again heard nothing. I then rang up again and they said i could email it to them, so i did and was told i would hear back in 5-7 working days....again i heard nothing. I rang up again and was told they hadn't received anything and that i needed to return some more forms again. they sent me the forms and with that i also got another letter saying the timeframe for visa sorting the problem was up and that i had to take legal action to get it back... I then rang up and they said i had to contact the retailer (amazon) but amazon then said i had to go through my bank.
Im pretty tired of going backwards and forwards to no success. Has anyone been through this before or does anyone know what i should do now. I have proof of the email i sent with the correct forms to natwest so can i complain my way back to my money?

Any help is massively appreciated.

I don't understand how Natwest can't receive a letter, a fax AND and email. Doesn't make sense really, did you chase a response from Natwest when you sent the fax and the email ? Or did you just wait for them to contact you ? I know in an ideal world you shouldn't have to chase them but after them not receiving the forms i would have made sure they had them.

I think the best course of action now is an official complaint letter to Natwest.

pmduk

When did you first notify your bank? if the bank has delayed matters until the visa chargeback period is over that shouldn't be your problem unless you have contributed to the delay. I'd make a formal complaint to Natwest, if they've not completed the matter within 8 weeks then escalate the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

pvt

Not sure if I understand what has happened here - can you describe the nature of the "7 transactions"? Are you saying they transferred money to themselves from your credit card account or that they bought 7 X £28 items from Amazon using your account?

If the debits on your card are to Amazon then I would have thought your beef is with Amazon, not your bank.

pmduk

vax2002 wrote: »

Just tell them the matter will now be passed to the financial ombudsman as the matter has become frustrated :
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/about/index.html

Once you tell them this keep your phone on, it will ring.

You need to exhaust the bank's complaints procedure, or have made the complaint 8 weeks previously before you can escalate to the ombudsman

meer53

pvt wrote: »

Not sure if I understand what has happened here - can you describe the nature of the "7 transactions"? Are you saying they transferred money to themselves from your credit card account or that they bought 7 X £28 items from Amazon using your account?

If the debits on your card are to Amazon then I would have thought your beef is with Amazon, not your bank.

I thought that initially but as Natwest have actioned chargebacks it sounds as though they've treated it as card fraud doesn't it ?

If it is the OP's Amazon account that has been hacked and used then it should be Amazon who are dealing with this and not Natwest as you've said. There has obviously been some delay in the process, by who we don't know.

george1drum

Thanks for all the replies!
My account was broken into and 7 items (which turned out to be £28 vouchers) were bought through my account automatically on my card as it is registered.

I only rang them up and chased them after the 7 days they said it would take.

I originally contacted natwest at the end of october when i was first notified of the issue. the only problem is that because they say they didn't receive the documentation they are sort of pushing the blame on so they no longer have to deal with it. as i have the email still that i sent and the reply from natwest saying it had been passed on that should technically floor there issue with me not providing the documentation.

pvt

George,

Then I reckon your beef is with Amazon, not NatWest.

NatWest might first have made the chargebacks/refunds on the grounds of your original call, but then realised that the payment made to Amazon are not fraudulent - which they aren't, because you gave Amazon your card details, and Amazon used them to collect the money they have been scammed out of.

It's no different to you buying a couple of books from them and then Amazon calling you up and saying "Some tea-leaf has only gone and nicked your books from our packing department! - so you need to call your bank and tell them your card's been used fraudulently".

george1drum

The problem is that it was an amazon market place seller that the transaction was through so it's not amazon that have received the money it is a 3rd party seller... This is why amazon can't just give me the money back. Nightmare!

pvt

Hmmm! Difficult.

I suppose it throws up an interesting question if Amazon are effectively passing your CC details on to one of its partners to use.

But still, surely from the bank's perspective the company that billed your CC did so with information provided by you via Amazon, so it is not credit card fraud, it's Amazon account fraud. IMHO Amazon should be instructing its market place seller to refund you, not sending you off to get your bank to do it.

If the fraudster had somehow obtained you CC details from your Amazon account, and used them elsewhere, then it might be a different issue. But I don't believe it's possible to do that anyway, you can't retrieve your complete CC number back from your account profile.

I still think your beef is with Amazon, since you (personally) have never had any contact or entered into any contract with the market place seller.