"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.

Don't worry about it. It's the bank's problem - you've notified them
of the fraudulent transaction so they should the amount into dispute,
stop any interest/charges on that amount, and unless they get proof
from the retailer that you authorised the transaction they'll refund
it. May take a while (was about 3 months when it happened to me but
can be quicker). It could be the fraudsters are using random credit
card numbers so the bank may not consider it worthwhile changing your
card.

--
Andy