Credit card account hacked into...

[TheBoyBilly]

...but those wonderful people at First Direct blocked transactions straight away. It was really impressive how they knew something was amiss. A silly £5 deal with a hotel in the US was all it seemingly took. Further investigation involved a transaction with a mobile phone company (who I indeed have an account with) resulted in the blocking of my card with a replacement on the way.
Top notch service from a bank I am so impressed with.

Great stuff FD, and thank you,

Bill

 

[Keith Oates]

That's good service from our bank !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[yorkshiregoth]

Whenever I travel to Egypt which was quite regular they always blocked my card until I contacted them. Although their parent company neglected to do likewise when my card was being used in Colombo - Sri Lanka a few years back.

 

[Crankarm]

Errr ........... they have dedicated software that monitors spending patterns which would have flagged up this transaction as 'unusual'. I doubt very much that an employee of your bank or credit card provider was manuall checking your transactions. LoL! Had you stayed in a TravelLodge in Cannock it would have gone through without suspicion ...............

 

[hungrydave]

A partial truth - they have dedicated monitoring systems but the decisions these systems make us driven by the analysis and rules decided by technical experts whose job it is to monitor the latest fraud trends and ensure their rules are up to date.

Depending in how risky the transaction is deemed, the decision to block will be either automatic or requiring manual intervention.

You're right to applaud them as theyve clearly made good choices about their monitoring solution and the rules it uses to detect suspicious activities.

I don't work for FD!

 

[Fnaar]

I reckon the bosses of the bank deserve a massive Christmas bonus!

 

[alecstilleyedye]

a £5 spend in a hotel with no prior spend stateside is bound to look iffy…

 

[Globalti]

It didn't stop someone from spending £1700 on our debit card a few days before Christmas some years ago after it was skimmed in a restaurant in Holcombe Brook, near Bury. We didn't notice until we saw our account was empty and spotted 56 transactions for saris, jewellery, sweets, hotels, meals, Tesco, petrol and so on.

On three occasions recently I've been in a queue behind someone who is trying to buy a few sweets and some cigs in petrol stations using a debit or credit card. On each occasion the card was declined repeatedly and the "holder" disappeared. One of the cashiers smiled wryly and muttered "He's gonna be a bit disappointed with that one...."

More recently though I've been impressed with Halifax; if you try to transfer money out of your bank account they send you a text with a code to verify the transaction - not completely foolproof but at least a step in the right direction.

 

[hungrydave]

Did you get a refund from the bank?

 

[Globalti]

Yes.

We gave our bank account to the Police, it read like a detailed itinerary of the two days this woman had spent running around with the cloned card. Times, places, everything was there and all they had to do was go and view some CCTV footage. Did they? Did they Hell!