Multiway dispute about unauthorised withdrawal

digitig

My son has had an unauthorised withdrawal from his Nationwide account of about £100, to Wetherspoons via Paypal (his Nationwide statement says "Paypal *WETHERSPOON"). Nationwide says they won't treat the transaction as unauthorised or fraudulent because he did make a payment to Wetherspoons (of about £5) on the same evening; his Paypal account does not show the unauthorised transaction, and the branch of Wetherspoons he was in confirm that the charge was not made there. What's his next step, with everyone saying it's someone else's responsibility?

Thanks in advance.

mwarby

Has nationwide been told all this ? If so its probably time to make an official complaint, and then refer to regulator if needs be

SnowTiger

I was wondering how someone could pay for things at Wetherspoon using PayPal.

It appears to be possible via their app:

Paying is simple: just scan your card or pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay or PayPal.

My guess is that someone shoulder surfed son's card details when he made his £5 purchased, typed them in to the app and had a night out on him.

I'd guess payments made in this way are collected centrally, which would explain why the branch son went to has no record of the transaction.

What to do next? As mwarby said, a complaint to Nationwide. I doubt he'd get far with PayPal or Wetherspoon anyway.

I'd also contact the police. Presumably Wetherspoon has CCTV and it may be possible to identify who made the payment from that. Whether or not the police would be interest or not is another matter.

DCFC79

OP did your son use the method as described previously ?

He needs to either not use that method or use a card where you can freeze it so no more transactions can be made eg Halifax lets you freeze it for online, remote payments and tills & terminals.

Wonder if NW have something similar.

18cc

I know I am probably being obtuse but why does anybody use PayPal linked to a card rather than using the card itself for things such as buying drinks in Wetherspoon etc (obviously online is a different matter).

LobsterMemory

Nectar points?

18cc

Oh Nectar points. Well I suppose this MSE!

PaulW922

I think that what Nationwide said is wrong. The fact he used Paypal at the venue is irrelevant and he should pursue this with Nationwide.

A transaction like this would not show on your son's Paypal account by the way.

sal_III

Can NW provide details of the PayPal account where the money passed through? Or Weatherpersons check for a PayPal transaction matching the amount that night (I doubt there will be many). It's a long shot with GDPR etc.

A possible explanation to the scenario is that someone put your son's card details in their PayPal account . That's why he gets PayPal transaction on his bank statement, but not in his PayPal account.

Report it to the police, but don't expect any results, they have bigger fishes to fry than chasing £100 of cc fraud.

Unfortunately, most likely the £100 are a write off, tell him to cancel his card and get a new one. Cases like this is why I always try to use Apple Pay in pubs or if you use contactless - keep it in the wallet/sleeve. It's just too easy for crooks to take a snap of your card in a crowded pub.

born_again

digitig wrote: »

My son has had an unauthorised withdrawal from his Nationwide account of about £100, to Wetherspoons via Paypal (his Nationwide statement says "Paypal *WETHERSPOON"). Nationwide says they won't treat the transaction as unauthorised or fraudulent because he did make a payment to Wetherspoons (of about £5) on the same evening; his Paypal account does not show the unauthorised transaction, and the branch of Wetherspoons he was in confirm that the charge was not made there. What's his next step, with everyone saying it's someone else's responsibility?

Thanks in advance.

How was the £5.00 made?

I would go back and say that he wants it treating as fraud, as he did not make the payment. When it is dealt with, paypal should provide details of the transaction.

This is a very common fraud. Card details taken, put in a app and used.
Could even have been a staff member if he used his debit card, then the retailer till roll has the full card number on there.

eskbanker

born_again wrote: »

Could even have been a staff member if he used his debit card, then the retailer till roll has the full card number on there.

Till rolls shouldn't have full PANs in this day and age, not since PCI-DSS came in a few years ago!

If it was that easy for customer-facing staff to access card numbers, there'd be far more card-based fraud....