Attempted fraud on my Halifax credit card

CRISPIANNE3

Yesterday I received an alert to advise someone was trying to do a transition in USA for two dollars and asked me to confirm. I said no and the card was cancelled immediately. However prior to this message I received another text message about five minutes earlier with a code for a purchase for £299.00 for Argos. That again was fraud but fortunately no money was ever taken because of their fraud detection systems.  I only got the card two months ago and the card is always with me. 

I have now gone into my accounts with them and set the cards I have with them to frozen. So in the future via their app I can just take off the facility when I need to use the card and that applies to all my Lloyds banking group ones.

NoodleDoodleMan

Some years ago I had a heads up from my credit card issuer to say that a transaction had been attempted in the USA for a small amount.

The bank advised that the fraudsters practice was to see if a minor purchase would go through - and if successful they would go for more substantial items.

CRISPIANNE3

NoodleDoodleMan said:

Some years ago I had a heads up from my credit card issuer to say that a transaction had been attempted in the USA for a small amount.

The bank advised that the fraudsters practice was to see if a minor purchase would go through - and if successful they would go for more substantial items.

Yes that is what the bank told me.

born_again

CRISPIANNE3 said:

I have now gone into my accounts with them and set the cards I have with them to frozen. So in the future via their app I can just take off the facility when I need to use the card and that applies to all my Lloyds banking group ones.

Just to point out that will not stop the fraudsters.
If they get your card number, Which is available to the retailer & printed on their till rolls, every time you make a purchase. So even if the card is frozen, then Halifax or any other bank will still have to stop & replace it.

CL21

I had the same situation a couple of weeks ago. But mine was a card that had never been used or even activated - it was still on the letter it came on, in a box locked away. I did a balance transfer to it over a year ago and never looked at it again. Transactions came from America and they’d already done one transaction  - and managed to add my contact details to a smart device for contactless payment - before Halifax contacted me. Think Halifax has had a data breach and they’re keeping quiet! 

knightfox

Its possible an internal rogue employee who has access to the account information and is passing this info onto a friend.

MEM62

CL21 said:

Think Halifax has had a data breach and they’re keeping quiet! 

Highly unlikely.  

CRISPIANNE3

One thing came to mind I tell the shop assistants I do not require a receipt. Could this be the issue here they are just putting them in a bin  and this would show my card number with expiry date. I add this is for only small priced items

eskbanker

CRISPIANNE3 said:

One thing came to mind I tell the shop assistants I do not require a receipt. Could this be the issue here they are just putting them in a bin  and this would show my card number with expiry date. I add this is for only small priced items

The receipts given to customers should never have the full card number on them anyway, so declining those makes no difference.  Merchant copies may be different but they'd always be retained by the retailer, who is obliged to control access to card numbers if they're printed on their copies, and accept liability for breaches....

es5595

I’ve also had something similar with a Halifax Clarity card. A purchase was made at Amazon for about £14, which went through, and was then refunded. It was purely luck I noticed within a day or two and I reported it to their fraud who cancelled the card and reissued it. 

At the time I remembered thinking it had been an awfully long time since the card had left the house. But recently I had 1password charge a subscription to it, and also other US dollar subscriptions have used it previously, so I wonder if actually it’s one of those who’ve had the breach. 

[Deleted User]

eskbanker said:

CRISPIANNE3 said:

One thing came to mind I tell the shop assistants I do not require a receipt. Could this be the issue here they are just putting them in a bin  and this would show my card number with expiry date. I add this is for only small priced items

The receipts given to customers should never have the full card number on them anyway, so declining those makes no difference.  Merchant copies may be different but they'd always be retained by the retailer, who is obliged to control access to card numbers if they're printed on their copies, and accept liability for breaches....

We used to have a card reader in the office, the merchant copy has the full 16 digit and expiry date though I don't think it had the 3 digit one from the back