Halifax Clarity compromised twice in three months

trdriver

On the basis of Martin's advice, I have had a Clarity Credit Card for about 6 years and it has been fantastic for overseas travel. In late December 2018, I received a text from Halifax asking if an on-line transaction with Next was made by me. I replied No and their fraud people contacted me straight away, explaining that there were now 6 transactions on my card for many hundreds of pounds. They cancelled the card immediately and sent me a new one. I was not charged with any of these transactions and was left impressed with both their fraud-detection algorithms and their customer support.

The new card arrived on Jan 5th, just in time for a three-week trip to Marbella where it was used for both purchases and cash. I paid the balance immediately on my return to minimise the interest on cash. None of the transactions made on this card were on-line, so I never had to disclose my CVC number. The card lives with others in my RFID protected wallet, and no-one else has access to it at home.

Yesterday I received another text from Halifax querying a transaction and it became clear that over the past few days the card has been used online (ie needing a CVC code) for Just Eat, Mytaxi and other things apparently in London. The Halifax employee I spoke to clearly believed that I had done something to compromise the card, despite what I told him about my security. Patronisingly, in my view, he explained that if hackers could attack big corporations like British Airways, they could get at me - but he was totally unwilling to countenance that the fault could be with Halifax. I have cancelled the card altogether, and have taken Martin's advice on an alternative for future travel.

I am concerned that this has happened twice in such a short period and only on this one of my various credit/debit cards, so the purpose of this post, apart from being a heads-up, is to ask if others have had this problem with their Halifax card?

Nasqueron

If you have done all you said then have you considered someone closer to home than a hacker? If Halifax had been breached, not only would it be public news (they have a duty to report it) then many thousands of people would be at risk or already been victims.

trdriver

Nasqueron, I have indeed - and that was an (unspoken) suggestion by the Halifax guy. However, the location of the charges (London, we're 200 miles north) makes it unlikely as does the fact that my wife and I are retired, live alone and there are few, if any occasions, when anyone could take the data from the card. That and the fact that on the first occasion, physical goods were ordered online needing a delivery address, and Halifax's investigations did not result in any further contact with me tells me this is unlikely.

[Deleted User]

I'm guessing you've used a dodgy cash machine somewhere and it's skimmed your details

18cc

I would tend to agree with the last post

I don't think it is Halifax their systems have not been compromised. I don't think it is you either having been negligent with your details or having someone take them from your house

I think what is most likely is that in your trip abroad somebody has got hold of your details either via a dodgy ATM or when you paid for something via a retailer

annoying but it can happen to any card and is not just something that happens to Halifax cards

chattychappy

trdriver wrote: »

The Halifax employee I spoke to clearly believed that I had done something to compromise the card, despite what I told him about my security. Patronisingly, in my view, he explained that if hackers could attack big corporations like British Airways, they could get at me ...

Well... "get at them" to be precise. It's their card, their security and the fraud is on them. Even if you had "done something to compromise the card", the law is clear. They are responsible. Whilst CCs use PINs, CVC, signatures etc., as a proxy for identity, they leave themselves open to fraud. A risk they take on given that the vast majority of transactions are genuine.

The only exception to all this is if you were part of the fraud.

Anyway, I've found Clarity brilliant and if I were you, I wouldn't have let the call centre experience put me off.