Next- call from fraud department?

[Deleted User]

Hello


Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this? I placed an order with Next at lunchtime (I don't have a Directory and paid using my Amex) and just received a call from an 0333 number very similar to their advertised customer service line. A woman gave me no explanation but immediately going into some seriously in depth "security questions" with me, culminating in her asking for a previous address. The only one I have is from well over a decade ago. By this point I cottoned on that really this could be any person at the other end of the line so I stopped giving out the information requested. Only then did she explain that my order has been randomly selected for fraud screening and she needed to compare my details to a database to make sure it really came from me. As there had been none of this disclosed initially I thought I really didn't want to support a firm who handled things in that way anyway so I told her to go ahead and cancel the order if she had to as I wasn't giving her any more of my details over the phone. At this point they obviously didn't want to miss out on the cash and said they'd be happy to keep my order on their books as long as I swapped my payment method to "anything except Amex". I declined so she was very short with me and hung up pretty abruptly.


I was reasonably sure it was legit by the end of the call, I just didn't like how they went about it. Now when I log into Next I see I have no orders on my account anymore, but I haven't had any sort of email to confirm this.


They were on their second chance with me anyway after previous service issues and I'm unimpressed with this call. Anyone else had the same?

jenniewb

I'm sorry, I know that you feel that this was a genuine call but this would flag up something for me.


I'd want to contact the account of whatever she was calling about (the bank or Next or possibly both). I would be wary that money may not show straight away or even be taken straight away and would be asking for details of the accounts I do have to be changed- even if it was not those the phone call mentioned (they may have been phishing for details regarding another account by using other accounts to get more details about).


Keep an eye on things- I think you said you didn't give away too much but just in case for a few days as money can take a bit of time to show, alert your bank to what has happened so they can also keep an eye on things and also, about 0333 numbers, generally I'd expect a call from a fraud department to be a secure private number and at best a number that can't be hacked into as easily. http://www.area-codes.org.uk/0333-numbers.php These are generally the 0870 type numbers rather than free to call numbers.


It could be that you are right and there is nothing to worry about but it just seems odd that a company would do this on a non secured line.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for your reply.

Update: I requested a call back from them just now to see if my order was still in place (i.e. call yesterday had been a scam). The adviser that called me back said she could see my order but the status was "refer to credit department"- i.e. not cancelled. She put me through to the credit department and that adviser confirmed yesterday had been a legitimate call and so my order had been cancelled (so different to what first adviser said). She advised I should have had an email but I haven't and suspect I never will.

She offered to reorder the items for me and although I shouldn't have I agreed. She offered me free home delivery but it would be Monday whereas store collection would remain at Sunday so the compensatory option actually delayed things for a day. When I asked what the problem had been she said they were not taking any orders with Amex cards at the moment! If that is the case I really don't think they should be processing orders as usual and using up their fraud department's time making these very scammy sounding calls. As it turned out her system wasn't letting her select the deliver to store option so I just left my order as cancelled and wrote it off as a bad job. You'd really expect a large retailer to have better systems than that! Will have to find some new workwear elsewhere now :rotfl:

Ian011

This could all have been avoided if they had quoted the order reference number or details of one of the items you ordered, up front.

sarah1972

Fluzz wrote: »

When I asked what the problem had been she said they were not taking any orders with Amex cards at the moment!

Thats not true as I placed an order and paid for it with Amex on Sunday

[Deleted User]

sarah1972 wrote: »

Thats not true as I placed an order and paid for it with Amex on Sunday

I suspected as much, all three people I spoke to on the phone were giving off "lie but sound like you know what you're doing to finish the call" vibes :rotfl: A retailer the size of Next not taking a certain type of payment would have been published on their website at least.