Wife got signed up to scam website - how best to resolve with card company?

murmeltier

So eventually this had to happen to my household - my wife got scammed while in a rush

She was trying to pay for Ringgo parking, but managed to sign up to two separate "gift card subscriptions" in one go instead. 

What is the best way to resolve this? Get her to call credit card company (Barclaycard), explain what happened and have them block all payments and send out a new card?

I can't see how any of this can be legally enforceable (I managed to reproduce what she did and took screenshots), so I'm assuming cancelling the card will be the end of it and the scammers won't be cheeky enough to try and come after her?

Is there anything else she needs to do? (apart from being more vigilant next time ...)

Brie

Not sure of the answer to your question but did she manage to pay for the parking?  If not and she get a PCN for not paying do ensure that you/she pop over to the parking forum for more advice to avoid paying those scammers as well.

fwor

murmeltier said:

So eventually this had to happen to my household - my wife got scammed while in a rush

She was trying to pay for Ringgo parking, but managed to sign up to two separate "gift card subscriptions" in one go instead.

Are you sure she got scammed? The advice would be different depending on whether she was actually scammed, or whether she accidentally went to the wrong website and paid for a legitimate service that she didn't intend to.

Where did she get the "gift card subscriptions" from?

murmeltier

Good point - she realised her mistake immediately and she manged to pay for the parking separately.

murmeltier

I think it's a scam

She was taken to this first:



"Download" then took her to this:



"Continue" then took her to this:



Note the small print and in particular the checkbox at the bottom which signs you up to two random memberships.

The actual websites you get signed up to appear to randomly change with every loading of this website - in this screenshot it's "myfavecar.com", but for my wife it was another website - they all seem to point back to similar companies in Cyprus from what I can tell.

Jami74

Remind her to always go to the Play store (or iPhone equivalent) to download apps. Lots of websites have these big download button adverts in the middle of pages, it's easy to assume they're related to the info on the page when they are not. Same with the QR codes on the side of the payment machines, better to go to Pay store rather than click the code.

If she knows which website she signed up to there might be a way to cancel the subscription or 'contact us' to request cancellation. They might have sent emails.

Two of my family members recently fell for something similar, the first didn't realise until a couple of months later (due to being very unwell) so we paid off and closed the credit card and never heard from them. The second one realised straight away and found the log in details in their junk mail so cancelled it direct with the company.

murmeltier

We have now spoken to the fraud team at Barclaycard who advised that the two merchants pending on my wife's card are known as "scam merchants" and that the dispute team should be able to resolve this for us tomorrow.

Apparently this "scam" is known to them, the merchants being in Cyprus is one of the red flags.

km1500

which begs the question - if they are known scammers why are they allowed access to the visa / mastercard payment systems?

born_again

km1500 said:

which begs the question - if they are known scammers why are they allowed access to the visa / mastercard payment systems?

Banks can not police the payment network.
They will try to claim the money back from retailer. Visa/Mastercard monitor chargebacks & if a excessive amount they will then take action.
Trouble is the retailers just move to another payment processer or change names.