"Dan Charette" wrote in message
o.uk...
I'm hoping someone can tell me that I am wrong and direct me to a solution
to the problem.

I never sign direct debits or regular payments to my credit cards. For the
last two months a company called HPMP of Brussels has taken 39.99 euros
from
my MBNA account. I have never made any purchases from that company or had
anything to do with them. When I googled them I cannot find any contact
details but have found others who have been scammed identically eg
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...html?t=1980881 .

It seems reasonable to me that if I alert the credit card company to what
is
a fraud that they would have a simple mechanism to check my story (they
have
found the Google links and agree it appears to be fraud) refund the
amounts
and stop further debits. But they tell me that this isn't possible.

They tell me that the process is that they will go back to the fraudsters
credit card company and query it. If no response or proof of purchase is
provided then they will refund the amounts. But they will do nothing to
prevent future fraudulent debits. Evidently, even if I were to cancel the
card they tell me that I will still be responsible for the fraudulent
debits
for as long as the fraudsters choose to process the debits and that I will
need to call them and invoke the chargeback process for every future
debit.

What concerns me - about from the barmyness of not being able to do
anything
from my side to stop a transaction I have notified as not being mine - is
that the fraudsters will continue to debit accounts where the debit has
NOT
been noticed and that the credit card companies are complicit with the
practice by doing nothing to prevent it. With a bank direct debit I can
cancel it online. Where is the consumer protection and fraud prevention?

Have I understood this correctly and is there anything I can do to force a
credit card to take reasonable action to prevent a fraud that they are
clearly aware of? It seems to me that failing to do so must break some
banking rule but they tell me that this is not so.

Any pointers appreciated.

I would say that as your CC Co has made a charge to your account, and is
working on a continuing authority basis, THEY (not the fraudsters) need to
provide you with the authorisation. Failure to provide that should
immediately put a hold on any further charges to your account pending their
enquiries.

You may also want to consider at the same time making a complaint to the
credit card company, maybe progressing it to the Financial Ombudsman
Services http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

You may also want to consider reporting it to the police.

A combination of all three may well get it all resolved.

IANAL
Iain