Nick

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

My wife has a Barclaycard with a 2nd card for her mother. The 2nd card has not been used for 2 years, but has been kept completely safe, secure & hidden. The PIN is not written down. 3 months ago, Barclaycard called us to say the card has been used to withdraw cash in Russia. We informed them the transactions were fraud & returned a form they sent. We also wrote & faxed giving as much information as we could. Now, Barclaycard are saying that because the card had not been stolen, the fraud is our fault & we have to pay the full amount including interest, over credit limit charges etc. Barclaycard refuse to give us any evidence & also will not respond to our many letters, including by recorded delivery & fax. We are definate that the card has been kept safe & can only suggest that either the card was read by a fraudulent device in an ATM (but why would criminals keep the info for 2 years?), or Barclaycard has had an internal security breach. I vaguely remember something about an Indian call centre selling customer's banking details a few months back.

Our case has been supported by a national newspaper, but Barclaycard Fraud dept won't reply to them either.

Please can anyone help with advice? Although we welcome the chance to present our case in court, we are very worried that in the chance of losing the case, we would have to pay Barclaycard's legal fees.

Barclaycard's fraud guarantee:

CooperS

The security breach was with HSBC in India

RLE

iTrader: (2)

In RUSSIA.........WTF is all that about.

Assuming Barclays instigate proceedings they have to prove beyond any doubt that you were either a). responsible for withdrawing the cash directly or b). knowingly provided the card and pin details to a third party.

I guess you will easily prove point (a) and as for point (b) this could only be argued as pure conjecture unless they dig up proof of some description to validate their claim.

Nick

CooperS
Thanks for the info.

RLE
Isn't proof beyond reasonable doubt only in criminal proceedings? I thought in civil cases, the proof was the balance of probabilities? I don't know if we should fire-off a legal letter to get in first & let them know we're not going to be bullied?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Ombudsman?

Brendan Hughes

Used to withdraw cash suggests a physical use, rather than abuse of the number. Card cloning?

I had a massive argument with Barclays here over terms of a mortgage, eventually it went to their ombudsman and he decided in my favour, which apparently even surprised the branch manager. It surprised me that I didn't have to take it further, but they didn't have a leg to stand on. So yeah, try their ombudsman.

I'm a bit worried about your story as I went to the branch a few months ago to discuss the possibilities of card abuse in various ways, and I received all manner of assurances.


BTW if I worked for Barclays Fraud dept I sure as hell wouldn't speak to a national newspaper either

Drunken Bungle Whore

Give it a go - but I found them to be completely in the pockets of the financial institutions. Their final judgement on my case read along the lines of "We know you gave them all the info they requested, as soon as you needed to and it was all accurate. We also acknowledge it would have been wise for them to use it - particularly as it says in their terms and conditions that they would. However, we're still finding against you."

Waste of 6 months time and effort! Still makes my blood boil to think about it. DON'T GET ME STARTED!

Sorry - back on topic - give them a whirl, why not - you've nothing to loose. Or else speak to the CAB and then a local solicitor for advice. If your story is being covered in the local press then one may be happy to help and benefit from the publicity.

Nick

Thanks

We've made an official complaint about the handling of the case to Barclaycard. I need to wait until 14/10 for their answer, After that, I will take the Ombudsman option.

I'm not sure a local newspaper would be interested in the story as it's not a local issue.

Card cloning is possible, but the last time the card was out of the house & used, was late 2003. If it was cloned, then the criminals waited over a year before they used the data. I don't see how that would happen. Therefore my feelings are that it's an internal security breach within the banking system. The card had previously been used to withdraw cash abroad, but only at ATMs inside a bank.

Anyone think that writing a complaint to Barclays Bank would help?

Holy Ghost

**

for what it's worth, on the very few occasions i've been stonewalled i've always deployed the nuclear option without hesitation. when it's serious (as this is) forget the departmental stuff - they're "little people": write directly to the CEO, cc'd to the chairman, the head of corporate relations, plus cc'd with a explanatory letter to your MP, head of the regulator and/or relevant trade body, the consumer affairs correspondent on a decent national newspaper plus BBC's Watchdog. then they'll know how serious you are and that you won't be fobbed off; plus the d*icks originally messing you around will likely catch hell from their superiors.

sadly, even though one may be in the right, causing the biggest stink possible with corporates is more often than not the only way to get the job done.

good luck.

Brendan Hughes

sheesh, for the nuclear option you certainly choose multiple warheads

BTW don't forget breach of contract - they've given a guarantee which they're clearly not honouring - and some sort of trading standards threat about misrepresentation.

Nick

That's good advice guys, thanks. A nuclear attack is being planned as a type!

Holy Ghost

ah, def-con 1. and at tea-time on a tuesday. excellent!!

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

How much is the debt? Less than £5000 and it's small claims court business. They can employ a QC if they want and they won't recover any legal fees from you. Go for it.

Scooby Soon!

I have 2 debit cards for my abbey business account one of them had been used once, one of them never (still stuck to the letter it came in the post with)

Someone spent £5k in one day on one (which was immediatly debited from my account because it was a debit not a credit card

I phoned them up they cancelled all the transactions and refunded the money in to my account I thought maybe the card was cloned (its happend to me a million times already) BUT about 1 month later I had the same thing again with the 2nd card which had a different card number and expiry, I had never used this card EVER, it was still stuck to the letter locked in a safe. Called abbey they refunded the money again and issued a new card, I managed to find out from one of the staff how its done. If anyones interested I can tell you roughly what they told me

Nick

Please tell how it's done!

Nick

It's about £250, what is the situation with legal costs?

Scooby Soon!

Basically the first few number of each credit card are the same (each bank have there own first 4 to 8 digits) the rest are made up from a mathamatical calculation. Similar to VAT numbers. Thats why if you try entering your credit card in to an online retailer and put one digit wrong it rejects it because it knows its not a valid number before they even process it. So you randomly generate the last 8 to 12 digits of the card. You then run these complete numbers through an excel sheet with the mathamtical calculation (the formula is available freely on the net) this deletes the number that are not valid card numbers. So you now have credit card numbers but no expiry date. You then set up a program to automatically attempt to purchase a low price item from as many websites as you can with all the different credit card numbers trying a differnt expiry date each time. As soon as the card order is accepted the card number is logged. The owner of the card is then charged the small amount from the website (The first one of my cards was used at firebox for about £5 ). These small amounts dont raise any eybrows or set off the credit cards fraud system because they are only relativly small.

The very next day my card was used all across the US in sports shops for between $500 and $2000 a time. Total spent in one day just on my card was about $9000.

About a month later I checked online and saw that I had a transaction for £8.00 come through for a bar of soap website. By the time I had got through in the morning they had already made a transaction for $700. Luckerly all cancelled and sorted out along with all my other credit cards that keep getting cloned!

Apparition

Poor you !
Please don't give up on this. You say you've written to a newspaper about it ? Have you tried the Financial Mail on Sunday ? They are excelllent at sorting out things like this.
It happened to me a few years back with my Abbey Debit card. The card had never left my side, yes I was usuing it , but it was still in my possession .To this day, I still can't figure out how my details were stolen. Some "person/ persons unknown" had gone on a spending spree in France of all places, buying designer gear, perfume, spectacles, cigarettes (I don't smoke), McD's and numerous phone calls, ran up a figure of about £3,500. Abbey, bless their cotton sox were great. As soon as I'd filled in the appropriate forms, they refunded every last penny. No questions asked.
I can't understand Barclays attitude on this one. It quite frankly stinks.
I do hope you get some satisfaction soon.
Yve

Nick

Scooby soon
Your fraud is different to ours. There were no spurious charges before the fraud. The card was used in Ura in Russia with withdraw money all on the same day. First (in rubles) 6000, then 2000, then 1000 & 1000 again. Then they went to another town Yurga & withdrew 1000. The card then went over it's credit limit (& we got an exceeded limit charge).

Apparation
We have already written to a national newspaper who took up our case. It caused Barclaycard press office to phone us immediately, however the Barclaycard press office found that their own fraud department would not talk to them. The behaviour of the Barclaycard fraud department has been disgusting.

A major letting-writing day today!

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

This falls within the small claims court limit and therefore they cannot recover any legal costs from you OTHER than the fixed costs for issuing the claim in the first plcae and minor solicitors costs (about £50-00).

The whole thing will be dealt with in an informal manner in a way that you can present yourself. No need for a Solicitor (you wouldn't recover your costs if you did)

Write to them and say "Bring it on"

Nick

That's good to know. We can't risk any chance of loosing the case for £200 & then get £10k legal costs! What is the situation about my wife's credit record if they write it off? Can they blacklist her?

Nick

Nuclear first use!

Letters to Mr Gerald Kitchen who only started the job as Barclaycard MD on Monday! Letter to my MP - don't hold much hope for that. Letter to the police as fraud is a criminal offence.

2nd salvo will be trade descriptions & anyone else you guys can think of!

Holy Ghost

**

[rubs thighs] Watchdog!

Nick

I'll work on Watchdog tomorrow, I've spent nearly all day with this! I've rang the local CAB who were helpful but could only come up with the Ombudsman as an option. They'resending some info in the post. I've also made a complaint about Barclaycard to the Trading Standards.

The CAB said that credit cards rarely put people in court - they just put a black mark on their credit history - for which WE would have to take them to court to get it off. Is this correct?

Nick

OK after over 3 months & 14 letters we now have a refund of the fraud plus Barclaycard's charges & Interest. The account now stands at zero & we have cancelled anything to do with Barclays.

Thanks to:
Ian Liddel-Grainger, MP
The Times newspaper
Citizens Advice Bureau

According to Barclaycard, thieves must have broke into my mother-in-law's appartment, travelled 3000 miles to Siberia, used her credit card to withdraw approx £200 in 2 different Siberian towns, travelled 3000 miles back to her appartment, broke in again & hidden the card exactly where they found it. Also they guessed the PIN.

I eventually found a Barclays employee who agreed that sounded pretty stupid.

Holy Ghost

**

nice one. never give up & you'll always turn the b@stards over.

Nick

I wrote earlier in the thread that I didn't expect much from my MP, however he was very helpful & wrote several letters for us. I've just written him a nice thank-you letter. The Police however were a waste of time, I should have told them the fraudsters were driving at 31mph.

Brendan Hughes

Well done Nick!

paul-s

I work for barclays on escalated complaints, when you have an issue and it gets raised to us, we have to aim to resolve within 35 days or you have the right to then call the ombudsman who will contact us. Theyre by no means on our side and for every case we accept from the ombudsman we have to pay them around 300ish quid.

ricardo

Kind of related... this article shows how the sheer scale of card fraud was hushed-up by the banks and blamed on customers. Very scary stuff !

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10...ms_and_rogues/