Metropol

Well someone's had a nice new mobile phone plus two top-ups on my credit card this week - and it wasn't me.

Thankfully the limit on the card was so low that other transactions were declined, and it impresses me the way the card company's fraud department has been in touch by phone and letter so quickly - it was only a couple of days ago.

The worse thing is is not really knowing how this could have happened. I've got my suspicions: ordering pizza over the phone and paying by card is the most obvious (and yes, in hindsight, most stupid) and probably finding that someone in the take-away has nabbed the details for their own use.

Anyone else been in a similar situation - and have you been able to find out what happened or been able to follow it up in any way?

I take it the card has now been stopped?

jrothwell97 wrote:I take it the card has now been stopped?

Sput wrote:

jrothwell97 wrote:I take it the card has now been stopped?

Thankfully the limit on the card was so low that other transactions were declined, and it impresses me the way the card company's fraud department has been in touch by phone and letter so quickly - it was only a couple of days ago.[/quote

Someone might just have forgotten to press the big red button. You know what these bank staff are like.

jrothwell97 wrote:

Sput wrote:

jrothwell97 wrote:I take it the card has now been stopped?

Thankfully the limit on the card was so low that other transactions were declined, and it impresses me the way the card company's fraud department has been in touch by phone and letter so quickly - it was only a couple of days ago.[/quote

Someone might just have forgotten to press the big red button. You know what these bank staff are like.

I get the distinct impression you don't.

I'm so happy that I'm not allowed credit cards any more...

A couple of weeks ago my mum got a call from HSBC asking her if she'd made the following payments from one of her current accounts.

This wasn't a credit card, but a Maestro!

Someone had used my mum's details to purchase:

1 return ticket on a National Express coach from London to Manchester
2 nights at Lowry Hotel in Manchester
1 payment to an escort company
An expensive high definition TV from Currys website

All in all, this person spent nearly £2000 in under 24 hours. Fortunately, HSBC realised and stopped the card before any more unauthorised transactions took place. All the money was refunded to the account and apparently the person was caught by the serious crime branch of the Metropolitan police who had got card details from hacking into a party gifts website that my mum had used some weeks earlier.

Never use Maestro cards for internet or over-the-phone payments. Credit cards are protected against fraud, so if someone does go on a spending spree in your name, you'll get your money back.

You do get your money back with debit cards provided the transaction is over a tenner, and if you don't check your online banking at least 4 times a day out of paranoia there's something wrong with you

There was a bit in my local rag. I only read it briefly but a lad burnt his bank statements in his bedroom, because his sis had just been a victim of id fraud. The roof caught alight. He got done for arson. The judge said for someone so sensible by doing this, Stupid was the wrong word to describe him. utterly stupid is more fitting.

I've got to read this again properly. It gave me the best laugh of the day.

We once had someone accuse us where I work of using his card details to buy stuff online, as 2 items appeared on his statement that he didn't remember buying. He just came flouncing in accusing us, no proof or anything. We suggested maybe he contacted the company the payment was made to, to see where the purchase was delivered to, and we would gladly action it all the way for him if he had been right in the first instance.

We never heard from him again.

Jamez wrote:All in all, this person spent nearly £2000 in under 24 hours. Fortunately, HSBC realised and stopped the card before any more unauthorised transactions took place.

I was going on holiday with that ya b####d!, you could've waited until I got to the airport and hired a car in Atlanta Grrrrrrrrrrrr