Contactless Fraud - Bank Won't Refund

MattMattMattUK

born_again said:

If it was so easy, why do we not see contactless fraud, other than when a card is stolen in the UK.

Largely because it is easier to steal the card, especially for the people who are not overly bright who engage in that kind and value of fraud. Even with the rise in the contactless limit the value is still small, it is not really worth bothering with if you are a career criminal, due to the limit most contactless fraud is more opportunistic. Most high value card fraud is customer not present fraud, usually online orders, dramatically reducing the risk of getting caught and dramatically increasing the potential gains as the goods can be valued up to the card's limit. 

born_again said:

A  lot of the stuff on the internet is based on US system, which is different to UK.

The UK/EU system is better but being "offline" does have other issues, a cancelled contactless card will usually work contactless for at least a few hours, possibly several days after cancellation. 

born_again said:

In over 10 years we have never seen a cloned contactless card fraud case.

Largely as mentioned above, because in most cases it is not worth the hassle, but it is easy and possible, I have a friend who works in financial systems security and they had proof-of-concept cloning before the cards were even released and it is possible to do it cheaply and easily. They also expect card-present fraud to rise this year due to people feel more confident of undertaking the transaction in person due to wearing masks reducing the chances of being identifiable after the fact, however it would still be easier to just steal the card.

Fingerbobs

Neil49 said:

mattwilkinson said:

Neil49 said:

First question for the OP is, have you ever been to Crete since you got your Starling card? 

Yes I have back in August, so if it was something I genuinely used my card for it should have shown up by now!

Not necessarily! I've experienced the same issue with my Monzo card in Canterbury when I got an overnight charge for car parking when I was home in bed in Worcester. 

Canterbury Council were very efficient in identifying the transaction and confirmed that it was for when I had parked there a month earlier. The original contactless transaction hadn't gone through so was eventually processed as part of an overnight batch transaction with a number of other failed transactions. 

Think back to what you used your card for while there. Best of luck. I'd forgotten that I'd parked twice in Canterbury which threw me! 

Just to add further weight to the possibility that is it a genuine, but delayed, transaction - I once had a payment to a hotel in Japan take 9 months to appear on my credit card statement, long after I had returned to the UK.

born_again

MattMattMattUK said:

The UK/EU system is better but being "offline" does have other issues, a cancelled contactless card will usually work contactless for at least a few hours, possibly several days after cancellation. 

Actually for a couple of years all contactless now go for authorisation to stop fraud when a card is stolen.
So online/offline makes no difference. Even  floor limits do not come into play.

mattwilkinson

Just to update - it seems to be actually a genuine transaction(s)Thanks to those who pointed out that it could be delayed. I asked Starling to check this and they said that there were two transactions from 3 months ago when I was in Greece that were reversed (they don't know why) but they were added on again the other night. Not great that I had to dig to get that answer and also cancel my card, but does restore some of my confidence in contactless

1882

I've had transactions show on my statement as contactless but they were online ones which I had made.

tacpot12

mattwilkinson said:

Just to update - it seems to be actually a genuine transaction(s)Thanks to those who pointed out that it could be delayed. I asked Starling to check this and they said that there were two transactions from 3 months ago when I was in Greece that were reversed (they don't know why) but they were added on again the other night. Not great that I had to dig to get that answer and also cancel my card, but does restore some of my confidence in contactless

Thanks for updating us with this. 

Dr_Crypto

I had a similar thing with a cafe in the UK. Made a transaction in December 2019 and it appeared on my statement in July 2020. Never did work out why it took so long to go through! 

born_again

Dr_Crypto said:

I had a similar thing with a cafe in the UK. Made a transaction in December 2019 and it appeared on my statement in July 2020. Never did work out why it took so long to go through! 

Usual issue is either data did not leave retailer or their merchant bank had a issue and did not run the transactions.
Often get this with purchases made in flight, as sometimes the terminals do not get connected up to download data. So find several months later there is a batch of unrecognised spending calls.
Despite most people knowing they had bought something on the flight & aware it had never been billed....

whirlyhead

I have a starling account, and any transaction that goes through immediately flashes up on your phone, and you often have it authorise it on your phone as well or it won't go through.  I didn't think you could use contactless overseas, I've always had to use my pin number?

jet01

whirlyhead said:

I have a starling account, and any transaction that goes through immediately flashes up on your phone, and you often have it authorise it on your phone as well or it won't go through.  I didn't think you could use contactless overseas, I've always had to use my pin number?

I have used my Starling debit card contactless overseas without any issues. Did have some issues with the mag strip in the US because you have to manually turn this on in the app yourself and then annoyingly they switch it off again after 48 hours of inactivity.