Cotton Traders Website hacked

Funkyfarmgirl

i have been scammed on one of my cards i very very rarely used and thinking bout it now it was used at cotton traders !!

Geenie

I had a big scare this morning when I checked my Barclaycard online and saw that I had transactions for £1003 pending!!:eek: Hadn't used it for over a week and after contacting BC and speaking to their fraud department it is now in hand and my account cancelled. Very efficient service from them.

2 payments were taken on it yesterday the 14th July, for theatre tickets at £500 each time!!! They couldn't tell me where or what for, but it must be one hell of a show!:rolleyes: The fact that it was still pending and hadn't gone through properly hopefully may enable them to be traced by the police. But the scammers are obviously banking on it not being noticed until too late to trace them.

What it has brought home to me is that I need to check online every few days from now on, not the week or so I usually leave it, as this is the 2nd time this year my card has been scammed. I want to make scammers life a misery and not get away with it.........not from me anyway. :cool:

feijoa

Very disappointed with Cotton Traders' public relations - like many of the other posters, I had shopped regularly online with this company. Had a text from Tesco fraud dept on Friday 4 July, when en route to Wales on holiday, asking me to ring them urgently. Turned out that they suspected fraudulent use of our card for Apple i-tunes just after midnight that very morning. I said definitely not me - as I was well and truly away in the land of nod at that time of night! So glad they were on to it so quickly - they said nothing had gone from our account and that fraudsters often use the apple site to test whether or not a card is still current, before going on to make proper - or should I say improper! -transactions.

Tesco fraud dept immediately cancelled that card and told me another would be issued within 7 working days. It was fortunate that we had another credit card with us - NOT one I had ever used for Cotton Traders - so we were able to use that during our holiday - otherwise we would have been stuffed!

When we returned home, we found another letter from Tesco fraud dept - this time telling us of attempted fraudulent transactions on an old Tesco credit card which I had in the past also used for Cotton Traders purchases. This card was cancelled in June 2007 when we upgraded to another Tesco card - yet the hackers were clearly able to get info about this card from the Cotton Traders stolen databank as well. Why did Cotton Traders keep out-of-date data re customers' details? And is their new system any more secure?

I haven't shopped with them since January - which is a shame, as I like their clothing. But the hassle over this experience (we had a number of direct debits on the credit card, which I've had to reorganise on the new card -arrived on Monday) simply makes it too risky to shop there again.

If only Cotton Traders could have been more open with their customers.......

cheeks

Im so glad i found this thread, i was just about to order a couple of tops on-line for my DH's birthday! I am so sorry to hear of all the trouble everyone has been having since using Cotton Traders.
Is it safe to order over the phone and quote card details that way or is it safest to fill in an order form and send a cheque? x

markelock

It depends on where they store their details. If the database can be accessed from the web, then possibly not. It may be the same buying in a shop, and the web purchases may operate in their own database, separate from phone/shop databases.

they may also have put measures in place to prevent hacking as described above.

Personally, I was going to, but am reluctant due to the reports from other users.

roni_j

I'm a cotton trader customer and last week received a call from the bank to say that 3 minutes earlier someone had tried to book a £3,000 cosmos holiday. What I can't understand is how anyone would benefit??? Am I missing something here?

JackAb

It looks like this isn't over yet. I also received a letter from Barlaycard in August telling me my card was being re-issued as it had been used at a merchant where security may have been compromised. As I'd had no problems I though no more about it. Yesterday I discovered 2 unauthorised transactions made on my wifes Halifax card on my account. We were alerted to the problem when she received an emailed receipt from Paypal. As neither of us have ever dealt with Paypal we immediately checked all of our accounts.
The Halifax card in my wifes name is rarely used and the only transaction in the last 12 months was an online purchase from cotton traders in June this year. Checking back on my Barclaycard records showed that Cotton Traders was the only Merchant common to both cards. The culprits had also managed to open a fake Paypal account in my wifes name using the same card details and her email address. So is Cotton Traders still not secure?

Kyresa

My father uses cotton traders. His credit cards have, in the past two weeks, been used to try and buy mobile phone credit. GM were straight on it though and notified us so we could cancel the card. This was a card that has been used on Cotton Traders for a while.

HOWEVER!!

We have just had a statement for an HSBC card that has been used on the Cotton Traders website ONCE in the past month, and that too has been used for mobile phone credit not 3 days after we purchased something from cotton traders. Note, the card is new, it isn't used for anything else!!!

vet8

Six months ago Egg phoned me to check some transactions on my card and it turned out they were fraudulent. I wondered at the time if it was through Cotton Traders as I buy loads of things from them. They gave me a new card. Since then I have only used it in Sainsburys, then foolishly three weeks ago I bought something from Cotton Traders using the new card, and now, guess what? More fraudulent transactions on my card.

Cotton Traders need to sort this out. I am a real fan of theirs, but I shall not be buying anything else until I am sure their site is safe.

Kyresa

It makes prepay cards ever so much more attractive if you ask me!