Merchant name on statement

Unkdb

I recently bought new glasses from Vision Express in-store at Tesco. Everything was fine until I checked my American Express statement. The two transactions I expected had gone through but the Merchant name was a Drama group that I know to be located about a mile up the road, no reference to Vision Express.

I contacted both Vision Express and American Express and neither was concerned. Amex told me they have no control over how the Merchant describes themselves in their tills.

I could report the transactions to the Drama Group as possible fraud, but feel I’d be wasting my time.

It might have been an innocent mistake when Vision Express set up their devices - but how are we expected to protect ourselves against fraud when can’t rely on the Merchant name to be correct?

Exodi

I think if the transactions where for the expected amounts and both the merchant and card issuer have no concerns, then I don't really see the problem.

As Amex say, the merchants can call themselves whatever they like. I have a significant number of transactions with names that make it hard to work out who the original retailer was.

You're probably right, there probably has been a mistake by someone down the line - but I don't see how it's your mistake to fix, nor has it caused you any issues.

soolin

We were only discussing merchant names at the weekend after checking through the credit card statement. It is common for us to have a few transactions we don’t recognise and we then double check against receipts , sometimes es the name on the CC has no apparent connection to the merchant we bought from. Some are no doubt parent companies, but some are just weird , a hobby shop we use goes through showing what appears to be a women’s dress shop - it really caught us out a few times.

MyRealNameToo

I get confused everytime I get my contact lenses from Vision Direct as the emails from Royal Mail saying they have them state its a parcel from Luxotica which always sounds more exciting than contact lenses.

Sometimes peoples company name is very different to the trading name they use. As above, Vision Direct is a subsidary in the Luxotica group which probably explains the royal mail naming. Vision Express stores are typically a joint venture between a local firm and Vision Express (rather than a franchise), have you checked the company name of the local branch?

Sometimes the merchant account provider will set the same, with some systems the system allows the merchant to set their name. It would be odd if they have chosen a random name unrelated to their company but some certainly seem obtuse. Obviously it can also potentially be human error, as I had on a presentation the other day where clearly I had intended to type something here but it appeared in the appendix on one of my slides

Exodi

soolin

It is common for us to have a few transactions we don’t recognise and we then double check against receipts , sometimes es the name on the CC has no apparent connection to the merchant we bought from.

Indeed, there's nearly always a couple we're not sure on every month and have to forensically try and work backwards from the date/time of the transaction and where we were on that day (we generally don't keep receipts that would make this easier).

To give a couple of examples from my statement:

CONFIDIA LIMITED

NYX*BNAELocationsBasedO Richmond GB GOOGLE 1808

SumUp *S.T.B Phillips DOVER GB GOOGLE 4490

It's certainly not uncommon for the name to bear no resemblance to the merchant - I wouldn't sweat it and move on if I was the OP.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82124245#Comment_82124245

Had similar a while back, I'd bought some video encoding softare and got a counter fraud call from my bank asking if I had authorised a transaction on a certain date to a german company, when i said I hadnt heard of them they said their code showed they were in music. Didnt help that the transaction was made on the saturday but they were quoting mondays date but yes, finally realised the branding on the tool was just a trading style and the actually company was the name the bank gave and yes this codec thing was a side project not their main business hence the different activity code

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6681970/merchant-name-on-statement

Vision Express like specsavers are franchises, so are you sure that Drama Group is not the franchise holder?

Guessing that they are PIN transactions, as such you would have a very hard job of reporting fraud, if you have genuine transactions both before & after & card in you possession.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82124453#Comment_82124453

They're not a franchise, its a business partnership, typically around 80/20 in favour of the partner