Fraudulent Transaction - Barclaycard want their money back!

Bunnyville2012

Hi All!
We are a small business, my husband and I, and we had a customer call over the phone to buy some tyres. They were expensive so my husband asked for a deposit. The guy paid for it all up front instead to secure the purchase. End of story. Not quite. Barclaycard called us 2 weeks later to tell us the payment was made by fraud and that they would be recalling the money taken in that transaction, £1000. Do we have a leg to stand on? Isn't that a long time to suddenly tell is it was fraudulent? 
It all feels a bit wrong!

pbartlett

from what you say, you have been the victim of a crime. report it to actionfraud and the police. do you.know where the customer lives or have any way of tracing them?

MattMattMattUK

Bunnyville2012 said:

Hi All!
We are a small business, my husband and I, and we had a customer call over the phone to buy some tyres. They were expensive so my husband asked for a deposit. The guy paid for it all up front instead to secure the purchase. End of story. Not quite. Barclaycard called us 2 weeks later to tell us the payment was made by fraud and that they would be recalling the money taken in that transaction, £1000. Do we have a leg to stand on? Isn't that a long time to suddenly tell is it was fraudulent? 
It all feels a bit wrong!

Not really, many people only check their statement once a month (or less often) so it might take someone that long to realise that their card had been used.

How was the transaction processed and what are your terms with your card processor. Eg. did you send the client a secure link, did you type the details into a machine as a "customer not present" transaction. Did you take further details from the customer and verify them (eg card shown on collection/fitting) did you record reg numbers/CCTV if you fitted etc.

You do not "have a leg to stand on" in terms of Barclaycard, they will have the right in your contract with them to recall a fraudulent transaction. You can engage the police, contact your trade insurer etc. to look at recovering your losses, based on the information you have (car reg if fitted, delivery address if delivered).

born_again

All you can do is provide them with the details of the person who ordered the goods (your merchant bank should explain how) and they can then see if it matches their customer.
As far as it goes a customer has 13 months to report a fraudulent transaction to get their money back, FCA/FOS rules.

If you think that a customer monitors their CC via statements. How long do you think it will take them to pick it up?

End of the day if it was a fraudulent transaction you will lose the money. Given you will have the address of where they were supplied too, then you will have to report to the police.

Sandtree

Have the tyres actually been supplied to the customer yet or not? If yes were they shipped to them or did they come in to have them fitted or something?

Its hard to be too judgmental as the full story isnt known... if they've not got the tyres yet it could be a case of someone trying to get out of a deposit the wrong way or it could be that the payment was made by a stolen card etc. 

bris

Fraud happens all the time but if you processed the transaction properly you are covered, unless things have changed since I last had a merchant account.
However are you authorised for telephone sales? Not all businesses are, we weren't, it came at a cost and as we were a bricks and mortar store we didn't need to be so if we did any phone sales we weren't covered in case of fraud.

MattMattMattUK

bris said:

Fraud happens all the time but if you processed the transaction properly you are covered, unless things have changed since I last had a merchant account.
However are you authorised for telephone sales? Not all businesses are, we weren't, it came at a cost and as we were a bricks and mortar store we didn't need to be so if we did any phone sales we weren't covered in case of fraud.

My business is similar, the client has to be sent a link electronically which they then use to complete their billing and payment details. If I filled in the details for them over the phone then I would not be covered if the transaction was fraudulent. It was also the similar when I worked in hospitality, we had to use a separate system for customer not present transactions (usually deposits, but also corporates settling thr bill), it might have been cheaper and easier to use the terminal, but if we did there was no fraud protection, as one employee found out, at the cost of their job.