As the OP, I just want to further clarify. Firstly thanks for the interest
in the issue.

1. I fully understand that the majority of chargeback queries probably
result in the requestor subsequently recognising that it is a forgotten
transaction. This isn't the case here. It is a company that secures credit
card details and places a regular charge on the account until the account
holder notices it and invokes the chargeback process. Probably it makes it's
money on the people that fail to notice.

2. The chargeback process itself is not completely customer-centric. I
cannot simply report the fraud online or over the telephone and then leave
them to get on it with it. They insist on a written form be completed for
each transaction separately. They insist that unless they receive the form
back within 14 days of them sending it then they will "assume I do not wish
to proceed" and drop the chargeback process which must be then started
again. The post has been bad, it's taken 10 days for the forms to arrive
with 4 left for them to receive them. I suspect I must start again going
through the telephone process to get the forms. Trivial I know, but the
customer must even pay for the return postage.

3. The core of my concern is that even though my own credit card company may
be convinced that it is a fraudulent charge that there is no mechanism for
them stopping future charges. They must accept any charge from any other
credit card company.

4. Even if I cancel the card and a new card is issued my credit card
company maintain that further charges on the old card remain my obligation
until they are notified and the chargeback process is completed every time
it occurs. I guess even if I were to unexpectedly die then my estate -
unaware of the fraudulent nature of the card will continue to be depleted
until the fraudster feels he has taken enough. The only hope they hold out
is that the fraudulent company "gets fed up" with the chargebacks, or
recognises that the constant chargebacks brings himself into higher
attention and therefore might compromise his continued fraud - and cancels
it himself.

5. I am most certainly the victim as I have already paid my credit card
bill and have not yet been refunded and have had to "pay" for the chargeback
process with my time and paid a permanent charge because of the cost of the
stamp and apparently have a permenent forward obligation if I want this
fraudulent debit refunded in the future.

The whole complaint therefore is that it seems that a customer in this
situation isn't afforded the same protection he has with the direct debit
guarantee and the ability of the customer to cancel it.

I hope this more clearly summarises the problem


"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.

"Dan Charette" wrote in message
...
As the OP, I just want to further clarify. Firstly thanks for the
interest in the issue.

1. I fully understand that the majority of chargeback queries probably
result in the requestor subsequently recognising that it is a forgotten
transaction. This isn't the case here. It is a company that secures
credit
card details and places a regular charge on the account until the account
holder notices it and invokes the chargeback process. Probably it makes
it's
money on the people that fail to notice.

2. The chargeback process itself is not completely customer-centric. I
cannot simply report the fraud online or over the telephone and then
leave
them to get on it with it. They insist on a written form be completed for
each transaction separately. They insist that unless they receive the
form
back within 14 days of them sending it then they will "assume I do not
wish
to proceed" and drop the chargeback process which must be then started
again. The post has been bad, it's taken 10 days for the forms to arrive
with 4 left for them to receive them. I suspect I must start again going
through the telephone process to get the forms. Trivial I know, but the
customer must even pay for the return postage.

3. The core of my concern is that even though my own credit card company
may
be convinced that it is a fraudulent charge that there is no mechanism for
them stopping future charges. They must accept any charge from any other
credit card company.

4. Even if I cancel the card and a new card is issued my credit card
company maintain that further charges on the old card remain my obligation
until they are notified and the chargeback process is completed every time
it occurs. I guess even if I were to unexpectedly die then my estate -
unaware of the fraudulent nature of the card will continue to be depleted
until the fraudster feels he has taken enough. The only hope they hold
out
is that the fraudulent company "gets fed up" with the chargebacks, or
recognises that the constant chargebacks brings himself into higher
attention and therefore might compromise his continued fraud - and cancels
it himself.

5. I am most certainly the victim as I have already paid my credit card
bill and have not yet been refunded and have had to "pay" for the
chargeback
process with my time and paid a permanent charge because of the cost of
the
stamp and apparently have a permenent forward obligation if I want this
fraudulent debit refunded in the future.

The whole complaint therefore is that it seems that a customer in this
situation isn't afforded the same protection he has with the direct debit
guarantee and the ability of the customer to cancel it.

I hope this more clearly summarises the problem


"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.

If you're a UK resident, or if the financial service providers involved are
UK-based, I would suggest that you take it up with the FSA/FOS


--
FERGUS O'ROURKE
www.twitter.com/ubfid
www.irish-lawyer.com
(Not just law stuff)




--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
om...
Andy Pandy wrote:

"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
om...
Andy Pandy wrote:
"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
om...

Can you expand on this?

It could be any number of things, some of which will be easier to
sort
out than others. It could be retailer typing in the number wrong
and
happening to get a genuine other card, or an obscure bug in the
bank's
computer.

Well, both those should be straightforward to sort out.

Why do you think some obscure bug would be easy to sort out?

I don't. I think the effect of the bug should be easy to sort out.
No evidence available from merchant to show I authorised a transaction.

If a
particular chip is read as the wrong card number for instance?

Get real.

I work in IT support. I've seen both hardware and software faults cause
problems which "can't happen". An obscure bug in a hashing algorithm once
caused the previous unit to be used instead of the current one due to
another bug in error handling code. A hardware fault caused mathematical
operations to give the wrong result despite supposed parity checking
everywhere.

All
evidence would indicate the transaction was made with the customer's
card and verified by PIN.

*All* the evidence? I think not.

OK, all the evidence relating to the transaction. The point is it could be
hard to sort out.

If there is fraud, then the customer is a victim of it
from the outset.

Not a direct victim. OK, an indirect victim, but you may as well
argue
everyone is an indirect victim of fraud as the costs of dealing
with
fraud increase the transaction costs which we all pay.

You're looking at the problem with too money-focused a view. A
person
is a victim of a crime as soon as he suffers any injury or loss,
even
if it is not loss of money. At the very least, he loses the time it
takes to get it sorted. That's not indirect, it's a direct result
of
the fraud attempt.

No it's not, it's indirect. Just like, say, if I owe you £100 but I
can't pay you cos someone's nicked my money. I'm the direct victim,
you're the indirect victim.

Agreed, but I wasn't talking about some other person, I'm talking
about the same person.

It's not the same person. In all likelyhood the retailer has been been
defrauded by someone using someone else's card details. The customer whose
account is charged suffers the hassle of perhaps having £100 of his credit
limit unavailable till it's sorted out (similar to above). And a phone call
to report the transaction.

The cardholder whose account is fraudulently
charged is directly affected, because he suffers grief. This grief
can take one form or another, i.e. he can suffer either loss of money

If he ends up suffering loss of money, *then* he is a victim of fraud (a
fraud so clever that it fools the bank).

or loss of time and cool in trying to avoid the loss of money. Either
way he's a direct victim.

He makes a single phone call to report the invalid transaction. In all cases
I've ever known that's all he has to do, and the transaction is eventually
cancelled.

If anyone really gets that wound up by this sort of thing I'd
suggest they cancel all their credit and debit cards immediately.

Don't be absurd. You might as well suggest that people with medical
conditions which would render them more likely to get a heart attack
if they should find themselves at the receiving end of a simple
weaponless mugging than someone of a more robust constitution should
stay off the streets and lock themselves in their homes. Even there
they're not safe from being attacked.

Having a fraudulent transaction on your credit card is one of life's
minor irritations. If someone really does get wound up enough about it
to cause them a heart attack then they are likely to get one anyway,
minor irritations are a fact of life.

The trouble is that a minor irritation can easily turn into a major
one when attempts to sort them out turn into serious challenges,
especially when your bank and card company act as though you were the
criminal.

Well if that happens you're a victim of defamation not fraud. Does it happen
often?

--
Andy

"Peter Saxton" wrote in message
...
Tell you what, go to the police and ask for a crime number. See what
they say.

They'll go to their trusty manual "How to reduce the crime statistics
and do as little work as possible" and then say that no crime has been
committed and it's a civil matter.

Go to the police complaints committee (or whatever they're called). Or your
MP. Let them laugh at you.

--
Andy

"Fergus O'Rourke" wrote in message
...

If you're a UK resident, or if the financial service providers involved
are
UK-based, I would suggest that you take it up with the FSA/FOS

I get the impression that card users seem to have very little protection.
Once a company has your card details, it seems that they are able to carry
out transactions without your further authorisation.

In 2005 I was with Bulldog Communications when they were taken over by C&W.
The service was so bad that I stopped payments on my credit card (I was
eventually able to do that). But, Bulldog/C&W also had my debit card
details and took 3 payments from my account within one month. When I saw
this on my statement, I emailed them asking an explanation. Without
contacting me, they re-credited two of the payments.

I took this up with my bank, concerned that Bulldog/C&W were able to take
money from my bank account and then put money back into it - all without my
knowledge or authorisation. It seems that they were able to do this and no
fraud had been committed. The only thing I was able to do was then instruct
my bank that no further transactions would be permitted from Bulldog/C&W
without my specific permission.

I just could not believe that this could could be done so freely without my
permission or knowledge. I shortly afterwards left Bulldog anyway.

Iain

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:13:17 -0000, "Andy Pandy"
wrote:


"Peter Saxton" wrote in message
.. .
Tell you what, go to the police and ask for a crime number. See what
they say.

They'll go to their trusty manual "How to reduce the crime statistics
and do as little work as possible" and then say that no crime has been
committed and it's a civil matter.

Go to the police complaints committee (or whatever they're called). Or your
MP. Let them laugh at you.

Can you explain what the purpose of that stupid comment was? Is it
related to your protestations that when somebody has money taken from
their account unauthorised they are not a victim?

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:08:38 -0000, "Andy Pandy"
wrote:


"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
. com...
Andy Pandy wrote:

"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
om...
Andy Pandy wrote:
"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
om...

Can you expand on this?

It could be any number of things, some of which will be easier to
sort
out than others. It could be retailer typing in the number wrong
and
happening to get a genuine other card, or an obscure bug in the
bank's
computer.

Well, both those should be straightforward to sort out.

Why do you think some obscure bug would be easy to sort out?

I don't. I think the effect of the bug should be easy to sort out.
No evidence available from merchant to show I authorised a transaction.

If a
particular chip is read as the wrong card number for instance?

Get real.

I work in IT support. I've seen both hardware and software faults cause
problems which "can't happen". An obscure bug in a hashing algorithm once
caused the previous unit to be used instead of the current one due to
another bug in error handling code. A hardware fault caused mathematical
operations to give the wrong result despite supposed parity checking
everywhere.

All
evidence would indicate the transaction was made with the customer's
card and verified by PIN.

*All* the evidence? I think not.

OK, all the evidence relating to the transaction. The point is it could be
hard to sort out.

If there is fraud, then the customer is a victim of it
from the outset.

Not a direct victim. OK, an indirect victim, but you may as well
argue
everyone is an indirect victim of fraud as the costs of dealing
with
fraud increase the transaction costs which we all pay.

You're looking at the problem with too money-focused a view. A
person
is a victim of a crime as soon as he suffers any injury or loss,
even
if it is not loss of money. At the very least, he loses the time it
takes to get it sorted. That's not indirect, it's a direct result
of
the fraud attempt.

No it's not, it's indirect. Just like, say, if I owe you £100 but I
can't pay you cos someone's nicked my money. I'm the direct victim,
you're the indirect victim.

Agreed, but I wasn't talking about some other person, I'm talking
about the same person.

It's not the same person. In all likelyhood the retailer has been been
defrauded by someone using someone else's card details. The customer whose
account is charged suffers the hassle of perhaps having £100 of his credit
limit unavailable till it's sorted out (similar to above). And a phone call
to report the transaction.

The cardholder whose account is fraudulently
charged is directly affected, because he suffers grief. This grief
can take one form or another, i.e. he can suffer either loss of money

If he ends up suffering loss of money, *then* he is a victim of fraud (a
fraud so clever that it fools the bank).

or loss of time and cool in trying to avoid the loss of money. Either
way he's a direct victim.

He makes a single phone call to report the invalid transaction. In all cases
I've ever known that's all he has to do, and the transaction is eventually
cancelled.

Has it ever happened to you? You don't remember having to sign a form
saying that certain transactions were not carried out by you? Maybe
there's other things you have to do as well.

If anyone really gets that wound up by this sort of thing I'd
suggest they cancel all their credit and debit cards immediately.

Don't be absurd. You might as well suggest that people with medical
conditions which would render them more likely to get a heart attack
if they should find themselves at the receiving end of a simple
weaponless mugging than someone of a more robust constitution should
stay off the streets and lock themselves in their homes. Even there
they're not safe from being attacked.

Having a fraudulent transaction on your credit card is one of life's
minor irritations. If someone really does get wound up enough about it
to cause them a heart attack then they are likely to get one anyway,
minor irritations are a fact of life.

The trouble is that a minor irritation can easily turn into a major
one when attempts to sort them out turn into serious challenges,
especially when your bank and card company act as though you were the
criminal.

Well if that happens you're a victim of defamation not fraud. Does it happen
often?

Defamation isn't caused by somebody acting as if you are a criminal
unless they are would never do the same act for a non-criminal.

"Peter Saxton" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:13:17 -0000, "Andy Pandy"
wrote:


"Peter Saxton" wrote in message
. ..
Tell you what, go to the police and ask for a crime number. See what
they say.

They'll go to their trusty manual "How to reduce the crime statistics
and do as little work as possible" and then say that no crime has been
committed and it's a civil matter.

Go to the police complaints committee (or whatever they're called). Or
your
MP. Let them laugh at you.

Can you explain what the purpose of that stupid comment was? Is it
related to your protestations that when somebody has money taken from
their account unauthorised they are not a victim?

I am hoping that he meant that neither the committee nor an MP would laugh
at you if you had a genuine grievance
--
FERGUS O'ROURKE
www.twitter.com/ubfid
www.irish-lawyer.com
(Not just law stuff)

Iain wrote:

I get the impression that card users seem to have very little
protection. Once a company has your card details, it seems that they
are able to carry out transactions without your further authorisation.

Yes, that was a concern of mine in a recent thread. I had discovered that
the online purchase of car insurance from Churchill was concealing the
imposition of a CCA on the card I was intending to use.

In 2005 I was with Bulldog Communications when they were taken over
by C&W. The service was so bad that I stopped payments on my credit
card (I was eventually able to do that). But, Bulldog/C&W also had
my debit card details and took 3 payments from my account within one
month. When I saw this on my statement, I emailed them asking an
explanation. Without contacting me, they re-credited two of the
payments.

I took this up with my bank, concerned that Bulldog/C&W were able to
take money from my bank account and then put money back into it - all
without my knowledge or authorisation. It seems that they were able
to do this and no fraud had been committed.

I once tried to query something similar. I asked my bank exactly what access
to my funds a merchant could obtain just from the possession of my card
details. I found them unreasonably reticent about this.

The only thing I was
able to do was then instruct my bank that no further transactions
would be permitted from Bulldog/C&W without my specific permission.

I just could not believe that this could could be done so freely
without my permission or knowledge.

That also became my view. I have never then agreed to either a DD or a
CCA and think it is worrying that a CCA may now even somehow be agreed
to tacitly.

"Dan Charette" wrote in message
...
As the OP, I just want to further clarify. Firstly thanks for the
interest in the issue.

1. I fully understand that the majority of chargeback queries probably
result in the requestor subsequently recognising that it is a forgotten
transaction. This isn't the case here. It is a company that secures
credit
card details and places a regular charge on the account until the account
holder notices it and invokes the chargeback process. Probably it makes
it's
money on the people that fail to notice.

Do you have proof of this? If any company actually did this regularly they'd
have their merchant facilities stopped (for the cynics it'd cost the banks
far more to deal with chargebacks etc than they make out of transaction fees
for those who don't notice incorrect debits). The likelyhood is that the
company accepts cardholder-not-present transactions and is willing to take
the risk that the occasional few will be made fraudulently. Unless the vast
majority were kosher they'd soon have their card facilities terminated.

2. The chargeback process itself is not completely customer-centric. I
cannot simply report the fraud online or over the telephone and then
leave
them to get on it with it. They insist on a written form be completed for
each transaction separately. They insist that unless they receive the
form
back within 14 days of them sending it then they will "assume I do not
wish
to proceed" and drop the chargeback process which must be then started
again. The post has been bad, it's taken 10 days for the forms to arrive
with 4 left for them to receive them. I suspect I must start again going
through the telephone process to get the forms. Trivial I know, but the
customer must even pay for the return postage.

Way OTT - when it happened to me it was simply a case of reporting it over
the phone and that was that. You could try asking for compensation for your
time and expense once the whole matter is settled.

3. The core of my concern is that even though my own credit card company
may
be convinced that it is a fraudulent charge that there is no mechanism for
them stopping future charges. They must accept any charge from any other
credit card company.

There probably isn't a mechanism to selectively reject charges from a
particular retailer to a particular card.

4. Even if I cancel the card and a new card is issued my credit card
company maintain that further charges on the old card remain my obligation
until they are notified and the chargeback process is completed every time
it occurs. I guess even if I were to unexpectedly die then my estate -
unaware of the fraudulent nature of the card will continue to be depleted
until the fraudster feels he has taken enough. The only hope they hold
out
is that the fraudulent company "gets fed up" with the chargebacks, or
recognises that the constant chargebacks brings himself into higher
attention and therefore might compromise his continued fraud - and cancels
it himself.

You keep going on about the "fraudulent company", what proof do you have
that the company is fraudulent? They are more likely to be victims of the
fraud themselves where a fraudster is using other peoples' card details to
order products/services from them.

5. I am most certainly the victim as I have already paid my credit card
bill and have not yet been refunded and have had to "pay" for the
chargeback
process with my time and paid a permanent charge because of the cost of
the
stamp and apparently have a permenent forward obligation if I want this
fraudulent debit refunded in the future.

You're a victim of your bank's bureaucratic process for reporting
unauthorised transactions. As that's all you know it is, at the moment.

The whole complaint therefore is that it seems that a customer in this
situation isn't afforded the same protection he has with the direct debit
guarantee and the ability of the customer to cancel it.

DD is a separate issue, there you have authorised something and want to
cancel your authority. Here someone appears to be claiming you authorised a
transaction when you didn't.

--
Andy