General Chat

Thanks for that Deborah. The postie has just been and I have a thick wad of papers from Barclaycard to fill in

When we read about all the £billions being defrauded from credit/debit cards we don't quite make the connection that these are *our* cards that are beind robbed. At the end of the day it's us who pay not the credit card companies as they just get it back in charges. I read somewhere that banks dont even look at cheques under £3000 as the cost of checking would be greater than the cost of settling frauds and errors. Bob

Thanks Aileen! Hope your blood pressure back to normal now? Margaret, the reason most people don't check the signature is because once the card had been swiped it is being authorised via modem, the once authorised the credit slip prints out for customers to sign. All my staff check signature and last 6 digits of card number also in cases of cloned cards they normally get authorised as real card holder doesn't know yet to cancel card but vigilant retailers would prevent this unfortunately the retailers still get the money its the banks that lose out. The reason for swiping if not remember pin in cases of chip and pin is that it is not compulsory as yet but it will be by 2005 so once this is in all retailers they will expect you to know your pin but as it is very few retailers currently have this system in place they will swipe it as normal if cannot remember pin. hope that makes sense long day at the store! zoë

BUT, did you know that if you use a chip and pin card and say you dont know your pin number, they swipe and take a signature in the normal way. How are chip and pin cards going to stop fraud if they can still be used in the normal way? One of my local shops asked me if I knew my pin number when I offered my chip and pin card for payment. I do, but asked what happened if I didnt. It was the store that told me it would be swiped as normal. Also, have you noticed that most stores dont check the signature anyway. I paid for petrol a couple of weeks ago and my card was passed to me as I was still signing. They dont care who signs.

Hi Aileen Just wanted to say how sorry I was to hear your story. What a shock! Keep smiling, and let's hope the credit card company get it sorted pronto :)

HI Aileen, This happened to my husband a couple of months ago. Opened up his credit card statement to find 'someone' had been on a little spending spree! All purchases were made in various stores in the local shopping mall. almost £1000 worth. All except one, a deposit had been made on a computer system from a retail park a few miles away. My husband had not lost his card and never draws cash, so it must have been a cloned card. Most worrying though, was a couple of days after the statement arrived, he had a letter from PC World, thanking him for purchsing said computer system from them and laying out the basic condtions of the agreement. All addressed correctly, husbands name, address & postcode!!!! Credit card company were very good when he rang, found another 6 purchases on their system he didn't know about! They had used the card around the time when the bill was made up so they had missed the statement. Full refund was given on all purchases my husband claimed were not his, no questions!! New card (with new number!) arrived within 2 days. Luckily no futher problems! Debbie

Oh Zoe what a horrendous story! I can imagine how you must have felt. The cheek of that bloke too. One thing I cannot stand is dishonesty of any description so I hope he got his just desserts! The day I found out about my fraud I was due to go to the docs for a blood pressure check. Fortunately for me I had been monitoring it myself for 2 weeks so knew it was really healthy but that day it soared due to the shock!! Aileenx

Also in my store we had a cloned credit card i.e. a card with number on front did not match swiped details. Kept card called bank with cloned details to prevent it happening and they said they could do nothing as it has to be the account holder who could cancel the account or turn it off!! Couldn't believe it imagine the shock that person would have when statement comes in as i'm sure they cloned it more than once and not all retailers check the digits on credit slip customers sign, all our staff check. zoë

Aileen, Unfortunately this happens to 1 in 3 people now hence why the chip and pin facility is coming in over the next 2 yrs however this will not stop internet or mail order fraud. Happened to me last yr with two cards, our mail was stolen but as we had just moved thought was due to this credit card companies re-send bills, arrived paid and only next month when I received one of the bills which had not used with £100 to pizza hut! Then called other card company and yep £150 to pizza hut. One credit card company told me the card had been used that day but I had not used it and they could not tell me where however given the spending pattern, i asked for previously used pizza huts store number, called them they had only had one delivery that lunch time, to my building!! It was not me, found out flat number 1 passed through window so out of reach of CCTV, he signed slip but never had to produce the actual card. This happened over 20times in two weeks!! He only had my card number from statements not expiry date so card companies didn't lose money pizza hut did as they didn't check details. Credit companies are really good about taking things straight off your account they were really good with me, I was in tears felt violated. The guy had also stolen other mail in our building (only 40flats), had stolen boyfriends cheque for £1000.00 and managed to bank it at Lloyds TSB, thing is we knew cheque had arrived and was going to get mail out of box on our return that night but when went back it was missing, called his company they investigated and can you believe it but the guy crossed out my boyfriends name and wrote his own and the bank accepted it!!! Luckily it hadn't gone through banking system and it never got paid. But my experience is that the banks don't really care, they are there to make money even if it is fraudalent. He also wasn't paying any rent, he duped the landlord by saying he was going to buy the flat but could he live in it in the mean time, he ended up staying for over 6 months before his family found out and made him move out. Landlord lost rent of £7000.00 and fees of going to court where this guy said he was going to give him the money and never did. He was investigated by the police and found to have done this before so was charged with 6 counts of fraud but never found out if he went to prison or just fined. zoë

Thanks so much everyone for taking the trouble to comment. I'm sure everything will be sorted out soon but it was good to hear about your own situations, especially the ones where your cards had not been lost. I've been looking at the internet concerning this type of fraud and have learned that it probably could have been avoided, had the software company been more vigilant and thorough when the purchases were made, which is annoying Also my friend is going to let me know of a programme that removes all credit card information from the computer so I'll let you all know. Aileenx

Hi Aileen, sorry to hear of your troubles. This has happened twice to me, but luckily my bank/visa company picked it up before the charges appeared on the statement. They called me to verify the transactions. So I was lucky enough not to be out of pocket. Hope you get it sorted soon. Maz. XX

A shop near me was broken into and all that they stole was the copies of the Visa transactions, the police said that was all that they needed

last year I opened a new current account with another bank,before I had even received the card it had been used and £1,200.00 spent in three days.The banks fraud squad picked it up and wrote to me,I was re credited but the messing about to get a replacement and answering questions at the local office was very off putting.I do not use that account now.

Only had a problem once and that was in Spain when tanking for diesel. We had a full tank, and within 5 mins were charged for another full tank. Impossible. No problem with getting money back though.

hi aileen my mums boss had the same done to him he only had it to use on internet the used his balance and cleared his bank account and overdraft out within two days the bank did sort it out for him took about two weeks i think tracey

Hi Last year someone booked a holiday using my husbands card cost £1,6oo we are pensioners and his card had never been out of his sight for a second, we did get the money back after they had investigated about a month, but it was a big shock at the time. They did issue a new card, but we never heard any more about it. Margaret

We had a £1,000 Dell computer charged to our Sainsbury's Visa, which was picked up by the card company as a query transaction. I now only use credit cards where I can access the account online and keep an eye on it on a daily basis if needs be. One other tip: don't throw away statements or vouchers intact. Shred them or burn them.

Jane at least your friend had something to laugh about once the shock had worn off! LOL Aileenx

A friend recently found her credit card had been used to pay for subscription to a dating agency. As she's a 62 year old happily married pensioner she knew it wasn't her. She only found out when the credit card phoned her to say they has put a stop on the card for improper use. I didn't know they even did that! Jane

Thanks for sharing that with me Pat. I guessed the delivery address would show that I hadn't purchased anything but I still wonder how these people expect to get away with this sort of thing....It makes my blood boil!! Grrrrrrrr!