O2 - Fraudulent Debit Card Transactions

Sway33

Hi,

On 10th Jan (Sat) I noticed 2 transactions which were made using my debit card on 09/01/15. The transactions were for 'O2 - Pay & Go Slough GB' for £20.00 and 'O2 IVR Slough GB' for £10.00

I'm an O2 customer so for a couple of seconds thought maybe they had charged me incorrectly but I'm a Pay Monthly customer who pays by DD on 26th of each month, so this isn't anything I've done.

Also, my contract isn't £30 a month and isn't charged in 2 separate payments. I don't even know what IVR is.

I bank with TSB and I contacted them as soon as I realised to cancel my card and to try to somehow recover the funds I had stolen from me. When I spoke to them bright and early, I was told they couldn't do anything at the moment as the transactions were still pending and I have to wait until they had cleared. They said they would then send me a form to complete and they'd be able to issue a refund for the money taken fraudulently. I was advised that my new card would arrive in 5-7 working days along with a new PIN. To me they didn't seem to take the whole fraud thing seriously which is annoying because plenty of times I've been out shopping and they've blocked my card for suspicious activity, yet they let a fraudster's transactions go through just fine.

I Googled the problem I had and quickly became aware of a scam a lot of people have been a victim of. Shockingly, this forum and topic went back to 2010 yet it was still happening with no real action being taken! One guy lost over £400 because once the fraudsters had a hit with his card for top ups, they started ordering furniture and apparently had a lovely time on the Tesco website.

I luckily realised after just £30.00 was taken and transferred every penny I had in that account over into my savings account which has no card at all attached to it. As they'd had a 'hit' with my card twice in succession, I didn't want them using it for anything else. Apparently, according to the forum this scam isn't limited to the UK either. People from the Island of Guam reported the same thing and several countries in Europe.

Now it's Monday and the money is still in my pending transactions so I'm still £30 down. I know it's not a huge amount of money but it's MY money and I didn't spend it on O2 top ups. Other victims of this report being charged for Vodafone UK, Apple iTunes and Orange UK using their debit cards fraudulently because their security features aren't as enhanced as the usual online payment gateways, so they're allowing these to go through.

The fraudsters are allegedly using software to generate random 16 digit card numbers and limited information. If they're unsuccessful they simply delete those details and keep trying. As the security for O2 etc are basic they don't have the verification steps required to ensure the transaction is legitimate.

I'm going to call my bank's fraud line as soon as these transactions have cleared properly and request that the money is refunded ASAP. I am also going to report it using ActionFraud UK because I fear that these people have been getting away with this for 5 years and it isn't going to stop. Even when I get my new card, there's nothing to suggest they won't be able to generate my new info randomly using this software they rely so heavily upon so I feel almost powerless and I'm losing trust in my bank completely. The advisor said to me that they've had a lot of calls regarding this scam but then continued with 'but you are an O2 customer, are you sure it wasn't you? I can see you have regular DD's set up for them?' - well yes, I have contract monthly DD so it should ring an alarm if I all of a sudden have PAYG x 2 transactions in one day.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks

stclair

The bank haven't done anything wrong you have to wait until the payment is settled to enable them to refund you. As they have no confirmation that the transaction will actually be fully processed.

grumbler

Don't waste your time on ActionFraud.
PAYG topus is possibly the most common card fraud that all know about.

Yes, your bank should have refunded the money as soon as it was taken from you account, and you can complain about this.

jackjones01

grumbler wrote: »

Don't waste your time on ActionFraud.
PAYG topus is possibly the most common card fraud that all know about.

Yes, your bank should have refunded the money as soon as it was taken from you account, and you can complain about this.

The bank won't refund the money whilst the payments are pending.

grumbler

Have I not said "as soon as it was taken"?

jackjones01

grumbler wrote: »

Have I not said "as soon as it was taken"?

It's the way you have worded it here's me thinking your standards are slipping !!!

Sway33

It's just really frustrating. Apparently HBOS refund immediately but that's just what I've heard and can't obviously prove. I feel sorry for the people who have had a lot more than I have stolen from them if they have to wait so long to get it back.

Is nothing being done about this, despite it being a 5+ year old problem?

I think my reason for being disappointed with my bank wasn't that they couldn't do anything at the time but the fact that they seemed really not that bothered about it at all. I always thought fraud was taken seriously but it seems a run of the mill thing now we have to just accept.

10pence

Sway33 wrote: »

It's just really frustrating.
Is nothing being done about this, despite it being a 5+ year old problem?

I think my reason for being disappointed with my bank wasn't that they couldn't do anything at the time but the fact that they seemed really not that bothered about it at all. I always thought fraud was taken seriously but it seems a run of the mill thing now we have to just accept.

Banks won't want to report levels of fraud especially card fraud, as it will reflect badly on them. Furthermore, they've spent millions of pounds and man-hours informing everyone cards are safe and the future. Heaven forbid customers go back to expensive cash for their banking needs, if they discover the true levels of fraud.

SnowTiger

Sway33 wrote: »

It's just really frustrating. Apparently HBOS refund immediately but that's just what I've heard and can't obviously prove. I feel sorry for the people who have had a lot more than I have stolen from them if they have to wait so long to get it back.

Is nothing being done about this, despite it being a 5+ year old problem?

I think my reason for being disappointed with my bank wasn't that they couldn't do anything at the time but the fact that they seemed really not that bothered about it at all. I always thought fraud was taken seriously but it seems a run of the mill thing now we have to just accept.

I've had a couple of unauthorised transactions appear on my statement, too. T-Mobile, IIRC.

The fraud isn't really against you or your bank; it's against O2.

O2 have presumably taken the business decision that it can live with a certain amount this type of fraud, presumably weighted against keeping the topup process reasonably hassle free for legitimate customers.

Sway33

SnowTiger wrote: »

I've had a couple of unauthorised transactions appear on my statement, too. T-Mobile, IIRC.

The fraud isn't really against you or your bank; it's against O2.

O2 have presumably taken the business decision that it can live with a certain amount this type of fraud, presumably weighted against keeping the topup process reasonably hassle free for legitimate customers.

Hi, yea I read that mobile providers are the main transactions you'll see, usually PAYG as they're an easy target. Vodafone and O2 seem to be the worst affected as well as Apple iTunes which I thought was odd as I thought they were quite strict upon authorising transactions. Oh well, you learn something new every day!

Sway33

Spoke to the bank's fraud dept. today now the payments have actually cleared and they've promised to refund me within the hour. They're sending out a declaration form for me to complete to sign and say it wasn't me who made the payments which is fair enough. One of my friends works for HBOS and said last night they don't really do a lot about it, they just refund the payments as it's too much money, time and effort to investigate. They'll only bother doing that if it's a large sum of money and they have an idea of who the culprit is.