Starling Bank - Fraudulent Transactions & Resolution Time

Tojo_Ralph

Just looking for some advice really for a relative who is dealing with Starling Bank and some fraudulent activity on their Starling Bank account.

In short, they are on vacation with their Starling Debit card in their possession (now cancelled) and there has been fraudulent low value activity on their account. The fraudulent activity being withdrawals from a cash machine 4,000 miles away from where they are!

After 2/3 days of communications via Chat with Starling Bank, they have now been advised that Starling Bank will be raising a case with Mastercard and they have been asked to confirm that they did not make the transactions, aid others to do so, benefit from the transactions, Etc. Etc. Which they confirmed immediately.

Anyone any experiences of such happenings or such happenings with Starling Bank and how they pan out?

eDicky

Sorry, I have no experience of how the process will go, but it will be interesting to hear. Also if you could mention the countries involved it could be useful for others.

I don't expect any such occurrences myself as I use Starling's card security features, with the location based fraud prevention switched on, and the online payments and ATM withdrawals switched off until I need to use them.

eskbanker

Tojo_Ralph wrote: »

Just looking for some advice really for a relative who is dealing with Starling Bank and some fraudulent activity on their Starling Bank account.

In short, they are on vacation with their Starling Debit card in their possession (now cancelled) and there has been fraudulent low value activity on their account. The fraudulent activity being withdrawals from a cash machine 4,000 miles away from where they are!

After 2/3 days of communications via Chat with Starling Bank, they have now been advised that Starling Bank will be raising a case with Mastercard and they have been asked to confirm that they did not make the transactions, aid others to do so, benefit from the transactions, Etc. Etc. Which they confirmed immediately.

Anyone any experiences of such happenings or such happenings with Starling Bank and how they pan out?

Perhaps worth noting that the FCA steer (taken from section 76 of the Payment Services Regulations 2017) is that:

In most cases the bank must refund the payment without undue delay and by the end of the business day following the day on which it became aware of the problem, unless it has reasonable grounds for suspecting that you have acted fraudulently.

Your bank may ask you to answer some questions and fill out a form confirming what has happened, but it cannot delay your refund while it waits for you to return the form.

so Starling should have refunded by now and your relative shouldn't need to be concerned about Starling's own subsequent processes....

Tojo_Ralph

Thanks for the feedback and just to round things off, I just got a message to say the monies have been refunded to their account. No further details, but they are on a European cruise and internet is sketchy.

Regards where the fraudulent activity happened, it showed up on their Starling app as a cash machine in India, the map showing Mumbai. However, I just looked at my own Starling account and the details and maps for purchases in Europe whilst outside the UK. The retailers are all correctly named, however the majority show map locations that are thousands of miles away from the location and country of purchase. The retailer names are correct, but maps for European purchases are as far away as Sao Paolo, Atlanta and Brisbane, so I guess it is HQ that the map records? The only constant is that the country named for each cash withdrawal is 100% correct, its just the map location that can be anywhere. Interesting.

18cc

A tip for making your debit card a little bit so far is to scratch the CVV number off the back just make a note of it somewhere safe at home in case you need it

18cc

interesting about location i have just paid 5 euros in france for a tourist attraction and it has given an address in utah usa - maybe it is the head office that shows. so india might just be the head office, not where it was spent.

is it possible your relative could have spent the money but not realised it because of the india red herring?

Budweiser_072000

When i lost my starling debit card someone was tryin to use the contactless to buy food but the app is great because you can literally turn off any payment methods being used (contactless, atm withdrawals etc)

When the person tried to use it we got an instant message saying transaction declined, contacted starling who instantly cancelled the card and we got a new one within a few days

Tojo_Ralph

18cc wrote: »

Is it possible your relative could have spent the money but not realised it because of the india red herring?

Relative 100% did not make transactions. Remember that transactions pop up on your phone instantly, when spending or pulling cash the phone is pinging in my pocket before the cash or card are even put away.

Also, for transactions the vendor is named and for cash machine withdrawals, the country of origin of the cash machine is named correctly (from what i have seen at least). It's just the actual location on the map that can be anywhere.

18cc wrote: »

interesting about location i have just paid 5 euros in france for a tourist attraction and it has given an address in utah usa - maybe it is the head office that shows. so india might just be the head office, not where it was spent.

I just discovered that if you click on the payment there is an "improve" option. If you click on that, for me at least it gives the correct address of the transaction. So for a cash machine withdrawal I made in Europe, it details "cash machine" and the correct country. Clicking on "improve" it gives me the correct address/location, street name and number in Europe for the cash machine. But the map shows Brisbane Australia.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Tojo_Ralph

Budweiser_072000 wrote: »

When i lost my starling debit card someone was tryin to use the contactless to buy food but the app is great because you can literally turn off any payment methods being used (contactless, atm withdrawals etc)

When the person tried to use it we got an instant message saying transaction declined, contacted starling who instantly cancelled the card and we got a new one within a few days

I agree that the app functions for locking/unlocking the card and for location security where the card and phone need to be in the same location are excellent. That said, for the younger "my phone is about to run out of battery" generation, I can see issues.

meer53

18cc wrote: »

A tip for making your debit card a little bit so far is to scratch the CVV number off the back just make a note of it somewhere safe at home in case you need it

Not a good idea. If using your card in a shop and the retailer asks to see the card it will probably make them suspicious.

18cc

I have all the CVVs scratched off all my debit and credit cards. I have never ever been asked by a retailer to look at my card. They either get used pay by tap or in the slot with a PIN.