Fraud on payment card - why these transactions?

Davina40

Nine fraudulent card transactions appeared on my bank account yesterday. Thankfully I spotted them promptly and got the card cancelled.

Some of them were travel websites, but three were to an insurance company (different amounts), two another insurance company, and another to a third different insurance company. The travel ones I could understand, but any ideas why the insurance payments? They were between £40 and £180. I'm thinking if these were for policies surely they would get found out before the fraudster could benefit.

Hoenir

Sounds odd. Not what you'd expect somebody attempting to committ fraud to do. 

molerat

If for motor policies it could trigger the issue of a certificate of insurance.  Even if the policy is then cancelled that piece of paper is still out there.

DullGreyGuy

Davina40 said:

Nine fraudulent card transactions appeared on my bank account yesterday. Thankfully I spotted them promptly and got the card cancelled.

Some of them were travel websites, but three were to an insurance company (different amounts), two another insurance company, and another to a third different insurance company. The travel ones I could understand, but any ideas why the insurance payments? They were between £40 and £180. I'm thinking if these were for policies surely they would get found out before the fraudster could benefit.

Fake brokers? 

Ex used to work in counter fraud (non-claims) for a household name insurer and a large proportion of their time was spent dealing with people who claimed they bought their insurance from "a bloke in the pub" and the policies were flagged because there would be a series of different policies bought for different unrelated people all using the same credit card details. 

In most cases the policy data didnt match reality, which is why it was cheap but the price they'd paid wasnt what we'd charged, they gave them the certificate of insurance and naturally didnt use the buyers email address and so when we cancelled it the "customer" wasnt aware. 

born_again

Davina40 said:

Nine fraudulent card transactions appeared on my bank account yesterday. Thankfully I spotted them promptly and got the card cancelled.

Some of them were travel websites, but three were to an insurance company (different amounts), two another insurance company, and another to a third different insurance company. The travel ones I could understand, but any ideas why the insurance payments? They were between £40 and £180. I'm thinking if these were for policies surely they would get found out before the fraudster could benefit.

Not uncommon.
Yest the policy will get cancelled, but these people are not worried about that.
They will have a certificate of Ins that they will say covers them. Of course systems will show otherwise.

grumpy_codger

Don't know about other countries, but who needs paper certificates in UK and what for?

born_again

grumpy_codger said:

Don't know about other countries, but who needs paper certificates in UK and what for?

If you get stopped these fraudsters will argue that they have a valid certificate of Ins & try to blag their way out. Same with getting a car out of a pound..
Despite the insurance being cancelled.

Could also be that they are taking the car aboard, knowing  that ins will be cancelled, just need some proof in case stopped aboard.

retiredbanker1

Maybe purchases for the intent of getting cashback on sites such as Quidco?

grumpy_codger

retiredbanker1 said:

Maybe purchases for the intent of getting cashback on sites such as Quidco?

Doesn't make much sense either. Waiting time for this sort of cashback is long, transactions are likely to be disputed, insurances cancelled and casback declined.

DullGreyGuy

grumpy_codger said:

Don't know about other countries, but who needs paper certificates in UK and what for?

Releasing a vehicle from being impounded. Technically it's not a paper cert but cancelling the insurance for non-payment or a chargeback etc typically takes a little while which is enough time to get the car out... doesnt literally need to be a paper cert. 

Similarly, those people buying insurance from a random guy in the pub seem to realise that they should get a certificate (paper or electronic) even if they dont realise that some random guy selling insurance in the pub probably isnt a licensed seller of insurance. 

brewerdave

I had fraudulent transactions on my credit card a couple of years ago - one was for a course of driving lessons, another for a year's membership of a gym -- never understood how they could be actually used before being cancelled !