Identity Theft

[woodbloke]

Just checked the 'tinternet banking and found that some nameless cretin has just made two fraudulent payments on my Visa card to the tune of £400 or so - can feel my blood boiling :twisted: . Have stopped the cards and will recover the money, but what a thing to happen 2 weeks before Christmas. We are very careful with shredding addresses and all financial details, but obviously not careful enough...so please, all, be very careful at this time of year (or at any time for that matter) - Rob

 

[tiler99]

happened to me in November, they randomise numbers so i was told by the fraud team. They bought about £700 of phone top ups and new phones (well the tried to get the phones) They had Pizza in Walsall and used it to book coach travel also had dealing with DHL. I heard no more about it other than i cancelled my credit card all together as i couldnt make the credit card company understand that i wasnt going to pay interest on fraud transactions and seeing as they didnt send me a new card, i wasnt happy about still paying insurance etc on the card.

 

[pidgeonpost]

Bad news indeed. Beware also of counterfeit cheques. Apparently there are some very good ones around which are not detected until the paper copy hits the 'issuing' bank. Often the cheque clears electronically and the counterfeit is not detected until eyeballed by bank staff. Apparently if you are paid using a stolen cheque the banking system picks up the tab. If the cheque is counterfeit, then you do.
I hate giving anyone a credit card number over the phone - last week I had no choice, and the salesperson read all the details back to me as well. Who knows who else was within earshot?

 

[Losos]

That's a valid point, we never know what the set up is at the other end.

For some strange reason I've always felt that giving a card number over the phone is relatively 'safe' ..........Naively assuming the company will have taken at least elementary precautions against fraud.

Identity theft is such a huge and growing issue that I'm becomming almost paranoid about it :lol:

 

[Shultzy]

I have an account with Cahoots which have a web card. The idea is when you generate your web card you enter an amount equal to slightly more than the transaction cost. The generated web card is linked within cahoots to your actual credit card. When you give this info over the phone or via the web the supplier can only take out of your account the actual amount. Any other transactions to this card would fail.

ie cost of transaction = £95
limit of card = £100
after transaction = £5 remaining on card therefore no other transaction allowed.

 

[Paul Chapman]

That's really infuriating, Rob We check our bank account on the internet every day for the same reason. The bank will sometimes 'phone you to query a payment if it is very large (which is how I found out a few years ago that two of my cards had been stolen from my office at work, and the villains had immediately gone to Harrods and spent £2,000 :shock: :shock: ) but they wouldn't for an amount like £400. Hope you get it all sorted before Christmas.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[garywayne]

I am sorry to hear that Rob. I'd just luv to get my hands on these worthless pieces of human feces.

Back to the point. There was a program on the box the other week, I think it was Crimewatch, reporting about the personal details left outside some banks and building societies in black plastic bags. So it may not have anything to do with you being sloppy.

 

[Slim]

If this happens to you, be very vigilent when you telephone the bank. Over on the consumer action group forum, there are a growing number of posts from people who have not been covered for the losses by their bank/credit card company.

With the introduction of chip and pin, some banks are putting forward an argument that these cards could not have been used without the pin number, and as such they believe that the customer has compromised their own pin number. Therefore not the banks responsibility. However after a few letters and telephone calls the banks have eventually covered the fraudulent transactions.

 

[Paul Chapman]

With the introduction of chip and pin, some banks are putting forward an argument that these cards could not have been used without the pin number, and as such they believe that the customer has compromised their own pin number. Therefore not the banks responsibility.

Just like they tried to argue that ATM machines were foolproof when they were first introduced....... :roll:

Cheers :wink:

Paul