340 pounds skimmed from my LloydsTSB Avios credit card, do I have any recourse?

meer53

jpwjpw wrote: »

Not a good idea to make accusations that you have no way of proving.

As for people saying you are stupid for running a tab at the bar, what a load of rubbish! I (and a lot of others) do it all the time and have never had an issue.

The analogy that its like leaving a load of cash there is completely wrong. You need a PIN to use the card.

Lloyds are completely out of order for not helping you out.

You are completely wrong. You don't need a PIN number to use a card. How do you think people shop online ?

If you leave your card behind a bar, don't ever admit this to your bank if you have fraud on your account, you WILL be held liable. Lloyds are completely correct to hold the OP liable. His big mistake was in telling them what he'd done with the card.

Just because you have never had an issue doesn't mean it's a good idea. Far from it, the analogy of having access to cash is correct, if you have a credit balance in your account, whoever has your card has access to that balance, PIN number or not.

chattychappy

The principle is that with a credit card, it is the CC's money not yours. The CC must be able to prove that you performed a transaction else it suffers a loss in the case of misuse. This is the default position - they are the victim of fraud, not the cardholder. However, in a limited way they can hold you liable for their loss as per my earlier post.

The banks would have us believe that our CCs are rather akin to money. It gives us "access" to our accounts and we should guard them as if they are money. It is therefore easy for people to think that if they "mess up" with a card, it is their loss.

But that is simply not supported by law. Consumer legislation intervenes and protects cardholders.

People wrongly think that just because something is in the T+Cs you've signed up to then it's enforceable. Ditto the lending code. This was a trick I was taught years ago at law school - it is sometimes well worth drafting something that you know will never stand up in court. The point is to hoodwink the ill-advised other party that they're stuffed.

Staff at CCs will often wrongly tell consumers that they must suffer a loss of some sort, perhaps even pointing to something in the small print. So many cardholders are trying it on, frankly I don't blame them.

I personally would never leave my card behind a bar. I think there is a risk of fraud and personally I just don't like the principle (in the same way I don't like DDs!)

I'm rambling - but I really don't think the OP has any liability for this. It is up to CCs to devise a way of verifying that a transaction is authorised by the cardholder before they pay the merchant. If they pay out on the basis of a piece of plastic being swiped without a PIN (or even with a PIN), then that's their risk.

real1314

Erm, this cash analogy - not really valid is it.

Or the "keys in the car left unattended" - doesn't work either.


Try this one:-

You leave your car with a valet company, who then use it for unauthorised purposes (80 mile trip to pick up some goods), during which they crash it into another driver.

Now, your insurance aren't going to be happy to pick up the 3rd part liability; but the law would also not hold the owner liable.

Similarly the card company are not liable, the owner of the pub co are, for the actions of their staff; and plod should also be involved as a crime has been committed.
OP should probably thank the card co for their quick action, enabling OP to get plod and the pub co involved at an early opportunity.
:cool:

jpwjpw

meer53 wrote: »

You are completely wrong. You don't need a PIN number to use a card. How do you think people shop online ?

If you leave your card behind a bar, don't ever admit this to your bank if you have fraud on your account, you WILL be held liable. Lloyds are completely correct to hold the OP liable. His big mistake was in telling them what he'd done with the card.

Just because you have never had an issue doesn't mean it's a good idea. Far from it, the analogy of having access to cash is correct, if you have a credit balance in your account, whoever has your card has access to that balance, PIN number or not.

I don't understand how leaving the card unattended makes a difference. How would anyone know if a card had been skimmed or not. It should be the banks responsibility. It's only a guess that anything happened in the pub anyway! There are a million different things that could have happened, including an online company being hacked (who the user may have had his card stored with).

Most online retailers require your address too and run authentication against that as well as the card number.

stateless

meer53 wrote: »

You are completely wrong. You don't need a PIN number to use a card. How do you think people shop online ?

If you leave your card behind a bar, don't ever admit this to your bank if you have fraud on your account, you WILL be held liable. Lloyds are completely correct to hold the OP liable. His big mistake was in telling them what he'd done with the card.

Just because you have never had an issue doesn't mean it's a good idea. Far from it, the analogy of having access to cash is correct, if you have a credit balance in your account, whoever has your card has access to that balance, PIN number or not.

I agree with that your analogy is much better. However, it possibly falls down in on area, that being that how can we be 100% sure that someone in the pub did this. Maybe the card was skimmed or details stolen on another occasion, and the card owner is assuming it must have happened in the pub. I mean, there's a decent chance it is if the info given is accurate, but it's hard to know for sure unless there's CCTV evidence. Checking on that would be in priority if this happened to me.

simongregson

I think a complaint is completely justified. The cardholder left the card with a merchant, who chose to hold the card rather than preauthorise an amount, in contravention no doubt with their merchant agreement. It is difficult for the bank to argue that the cardholder has been negligent in giving their card to an authorised merchant.

jonesMUFCforever

OP seems really unlucky doesn't he?
1st post indicates how he's lost more than £1000 in interest because he has not updated his Isa for a couple of years.
2nd post about losing money on his credit/debit card.

Really unlucky and he hasn't bothered to update us either.

Eonel

Meer53 called it right. Leaving your card behind a bar is very common these days - how many of us carry enough cash to pay a family & friends bar bill?

The mistake the OP made (& the lesson I have learned from it) is telling the bank or credit card company that is what you did.

magpiecottage

meer53 wrote: »

Sounds to me as though the OP was using a debit card and not a credit card.

He says it was a credit card.

Either way, it should not be possible for a crooked employee at the pub to use the card and I would suggest that a complaint to LloydsTSB should be the first move.

However, if they have recommended you go to the Police yourself (an unusual move these days) I suggest you do that too.

MPH80

chattychappy wrote: »

Secondly, we are not talking about a situation where the OP gave the card to a third party as in a colleague or friend (as per the FOS example 46/3). Here we are talking about the merchant. However foolish people might think the OP was, I do not think this permits the CC to impose liability on the cardholder for fraud by the merchant (or their staff). Handing a card to a merchant is not authorising a third person to use the card. You are handing it over as part of a transaction (or series of transactions as here).

It's an interesting debating point here - and I largely agree with you I think.

However, to play Devil's Advocate for the moment, and to go back to my original point:

1. He handed over his card to a 3rd party
2. He gave it, implicitly, for the purpose of an (as yet at that point) unknown transaction or transactions
3. We're assuming that 3rd party missued the card

In 46/3 - the FOS clearly shows the same scenario.

The debate is really whether the merchant's staff can be considered different to the friend/colleague from 46/3. Here's where my mind wanders a little - if you hand your card to someone to perform a transaction at that moment - that's one thing. In this scenario you don't - you hand it over to perform a transaction or transactions later on depending on further actions. Does that create some sort of implicit trust as per 46/3?

Equally - there's a valid question as to whether it was *that* member of staff who performed the unauthorised transactions, which if I was right about my logic, might present an argument and angle to dispute on.

Having said all that ChattyChappy - I actually agree with your advice from earlier. Dispute, dispute, dispute.

M.