Claiming Online Competition winnings safely by debit card

bradders1983

Mancunian123 said:

bradders1983 said:

Everyone has stated there is absolutely no risk to you giving them your sort code and account number. 

The Jeremy Clarkson episode says you're wrong there!   There's always risk giving personal info to strangers.
But my question is, since they took my entry fee by Debit Card, why are they being so awkward about returning my winnings in the same way?   Surely this is the common-sense safest, quickest and easiest way?
Why are they trying to obtain my current account details?  
Am I missing something?  Is there some reason why they can't return money via my debit card in the same way that Amazon, Ebay or an online bookmaker would?

I have no idea.  Companies work in different way. Anyway, the Clarkson thing has been explained to you three times so if you wont listen, I will leave it up to you.

born_again

Mancunian123 said:

Sorry if this is in the wrong section, but really it's banking advice I need about what bank information can be given out safely.
Long story short.  I paid to enter an online competition (for a charity fundraiser) with a decent monetary prize to the winner and the rest of the entry fees to charity.    And I won.
The £5 entry fee was taken online by Debit Card over the organisers  website.   Then after winning, the prize, (a few hundred pounds), was credited to my account on the website.  Much like (say) an online bookmakers website, there is a button to withdraw funds, which I clicked.  But it didn't work.  So I contacted the company.  They said because the win was bigger than normal, the website wouldn't allow automatic payment, as someone has to approve it.   Fair enough.     
Now, to my thinking, after approval, they should be able to pay the winnings back to my debit card. The one from which they took the original stake.
However they're saying they want to telephone me to get my bank account sort code and account number to make the payment.   This seems very dodgy to me.  Surely we shouldn't ever give our sort code and account number over the phone to a stranger?????
Now I don't for one minute think the competition is anything other than an honest one, but their insistence on wanting to call me to confirm my account no and sort code over the phone worries me.

Should they be able to pay the winnings to my debit card without any further information?  ( They had no problem taking the £5 stake from my debit card.)   Or do they really need me to provide my account details?  Am I being paranoid?

So let them call you.
Tell them that as per card regulations & AML, that they have to refund back via the method used to take the payment.

But it could be as simple as, they are not a big charity. So they use a 3rd party co to process card payments. So do not actually have your card details.
One reason that the charity I frequent due to our dogs. Only take payment via Paypal. It is then easy & cheap for them to take & process winning to the people involved.

InA

soulsaver said:

theshed said:

Malkytheheed said:

If you wanted someone to post you something would you give them your address? 


Noone can steal anything from you with your account number and sort code. They can only deposit money into your account. 

I think Jeremy Clarkson would disagree with you there !
He published his bank details in his 'paper column giving the same argument.
A well known charity helped themselves to a small donation.
I believe he allowed them to keep 'donation' but point was proved.

If you believe the story at all, 'Helped themselves' is not accurate. Reportedly an unauthorised Direct Debit was set up by a third party TO the charity. 
And Clarkson could have had it immediately refunded using the DD guarantee.

Not familiar with the Jeremy Clarkson story, however, Donald Trump's bank details were recently revealed.

The Guardian article on the Trump story stated that:

Having such details puts a bank account at risk of hacking or use by others. The relevant details in the cheque have been cropped out of the picture used in this story.

Mike Chapple, a teaching professor of information technology at the University of Notre Dame, told the newspaper that this showed why large promotional cheques were used for TV. “They’re not only a nice prop onstage, but they also omit the sensitive account information that normally appears at the bottom,” he said. “The rest of us should play it safe and keep our account numbers to ourselves.”

The article doesn't go into details (re: how this is done), but a determined criminal will have their ways and means, even if such methods are not common knowledge.

In relation to the OP, the first step would be to ascertain whether the company and / or the website is legitimate. 

colsten

InA said:

The article doesn't go into details (re: how this is done), but a determined criminal will have their ways and means, even if such methods are not common knowledge.

Is that why tens of millions of people in the UK keep having their accounts hacked, after having written hundreds of millions (400m in 2017 alone) of cheques over several decades? 

born_again

American & UK banking are different beasts.
A account can not be hacked by sort code/account number. You also need security details.

JezR

In countries where historically banking transactions were mainly carried out by giro rather than by cheque telling people your account number so the transfer could be initiated was always required. Modern banking transfers (and for that matter debit cards) are in effect a kind of paperless giro.