Prepaid Card Fraud - Advice Needed

michaelm

I applied for a prepaid Mastercard a few months ago, July I think. I applied for it after receiving a regular email from MSE I believe. Once the application was completed, I received confirmation that the card would be with me in a few days. But the card never turned up and I thought no more about it as I already have a Supercard which I use for international payments.

Fast forward to just now when I received a call from my bank's fraud team to check on a payment drawn on my account yesterday which they picked up on. The payment, £55-odds, was going to "Tuxedo Money" which they initially thought was a payday loan company but after checking when I said I definitely have no idea what it is, they found that it is a prepaid Mastercard. Up until now, small amounts have been made to the card over the last few months, between £4 and £7 each time, so when the higher amount was taken they became suspicious. They have stopped any further withdrawals to the card and asked me to contact Tuxedo Money to report the card as stolen and to have the total amount taken, over £120, refunded. Worryingly, when I was on the phone with the bank, I could hear other operators talking on the phone to other customers about the same thing.

I've tried to get a fraud reporting telephone number for Tuxedo Money but they only seem to have a mobile number or landlines number at 10p per minute. Furthermore, I've been reading stories from other people who have used cards operated by Tuxedo and who say their customer service is terrible and the (Indian) call centre staff appear to be, let's say, undertrained.

Shouldn't phone numbers to report fraud be free? Certainly any ones I have ever used, including PayPal and my own bank, have been. Also, I would like to hear other MSE forum members' experiences with Tuxedo Money including any alternative phone numbers, if any.

eddddy

From their website:

8. Lost and stolen Prepaid Card and unauthorised or incorrectly executed payments

You must tell us without undue delay by calling us on our 24 hour lost and stolen card helpline 020 7101 6599 if you know or suspect that a Prepaid Card is lost or stolen or that the PIN or password is known to an unauthorised person or if you think a transaction has not been authorised by you.


http://www.tuxedoprepaid.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tuxedo_MasterCardMaestroTCs_Sept-2015.pdf

msallen

Tuxedomoney is Supercard, which you said you'd got. Is your Supercard linked to the account that you got the call about?

michaelm

msallen wrote: »

Tuxedomoney is Supercard, which you said you'd got. Is your Supercard linked to the account that you got the call about?

Supercard is Visa and works in conjunction with your bank account to alleviate charges on foreign currency exchange. This is a Mastercard prepaid card so not the same thing.

michaelm

eddddy wrote: »

From their website:

I ended up just calling that number and the guy in the (Indian) call centre was pretty good. He was able to pull my details up very quickly and put an immediate stop on the card. He also said someone from their fraud team will call me on Monday about this and to deal with the unauthorised transactions. So watch this space...

msallen

michaelm wrote: »

Supercard is Visa and works in conjunction with your bank account to alleviate charges on foreign currency exchange. This is a Mastercard prepaid card so not the same thing.

You misunderstand. When I use my Supercard. It appears on my linked card statement as Tuxedomoney.

Ben8282

You have had several payments go out from your bank account over the past few months but failed to notice them.
Instead, your wonderful helpful observant bank who just happened to notice that the payment was bigger than usual, actually called you. Not only that, you could hear the other operators all talking to other customers about the same thing.
On what basis were these payments being taken? It is not normal when obtaining a prepaid mastercard to give them details of your bank account or a direct debit mandate. You top it up; they don't take dd payments from your bank account.

uncreative

michaelm wrote: »

I applied for a prepaid Mastercard a few months ago, July I think..... But the card never turned up and I thought no more about...

Card didnt turn up and you dont think anything of it and ignore the situation,

Amounts being taken out your bank for months and you dont realise it,

Bank has to phone you to highlight a potential fraud,

But I bet you will be livid if you dont get your 120 back.

The majority of people need to take more personal responsibility for their finances.

michaelm

msallen wrote: »

You misunderstand. When I use my Supercard. It appears on my linked card statement as Tuxedomoney.

I know that, but they are two completely different cards.

michaelm

Ben8282 wrote: »

You have had several payments go out from your bank account over the past few months but failed to notice them.
Instead, your wonderful helpful observant bank who just happened to notice that the payment was bigger than usual, actually called you. Not only that, you could hear the other operators all talking to other customers about the same thing.
On what basis were these payments being taken? It is not normal when obtaining a prepaid mastercard to give them details of your bank account or a direct debit mandate. You top it up; they don't take dd payments from your bank account.

I agree, my bank, Santander, was totally on the ball and have been on several occasions when I have been buying from the European mainland or the US. Probably due to a software system which detects such things and then passes them to case officers, rather than a team of people sitting monitoring individual accounts and payments

The payments were varied, £1.48, £8.99, £17.33, sometimes a few on the same day. I was obviously wrong when I said they must have detected a higher figure than usual. It now seems more likely that these cards have been targeted by scamsters and other customers had reported it. And I agree about the card being linked to an account. How would the fraudster have gotten hold of my bank account details and why not just clean my account out instead of just taking small(ish) amounts each time? I can't remember which site I ordered it from, I'm not sure if I was asked to link a card while applying and I never got an email confirmation about it, just an onscreen message at the end of the application to say the card would be with me in three days.

eDicky

michaelm wrote: »

I know that, but they are two completely different cards.

Yes, but msallen is implying that the various small outgoings are in fact your regular overseas payments using your Supercard, which show up on your bank statement as 'Tuxedomoney' and are nothing to do with the prepaid MasterCard. This would explain all the strange circumstances around the 'fraud' that never happened. Can you rule out this possibility?