Anybody else get spurious US transactions on their credit card?

[JanH]

We have had 3 of these now, on our Egg card which is an online one - in Feb, autotrader.com, $30.00; in July, auto-by-tel service $29.95; and in Sept cars.com $50.00.

I have reported them all to Egg, the first has been credited back but the second hasn't yet and I only just told them about the latest one. I asked if Egg could find out how they got our card number and their only suggestion was to cancel the old card and get a new one, which takes 10 days and means you can't access old records any more, blah blah - surely they should be able to contact the trader and ask for details of the transaction?

yes i have had this.....they are refusing to refund my money though as they say there isnt enough evidence to prove it WASN'T me that did the transactions.......grrr.....they sent me a new card but now I have cleared the balance, I wont be reactivating it and am cancelling the card and sending them a snotty letter. I am very disappointed in them.

They should be able to -- and ask them to block any transactions which originate from outside the UK. I know that my credit card company (Citibank) has been hyper vigilant about online purchases and I've been called a number of times to check that I'm the one using the card. (No fraud on my account, yet, but the fact that I buy stuff in the US and CH at the same times puts up warning flags for them.)

I guess it's been happening more often lately.

Can they block internet transactions from outside the UK but not others, JJ? We would want to be able to use the card abroad ourselves...trouble is that I might want to buy something from a foreign website myself sometimes!

I have just emailed Which? about it - they should know if there's a lot of it about.

Titania, I might end up going that route. We can always get another card! (Well we have loads already but don't use the others. I feel a new 0% card coming on...)

Change cards! Your credit card company should not let transactions through without some sort of check of security number or whether the merchandise is being mailed to the billing address. And they absolutely should refund your money immediately. Call watchdog and get them on it.

I asked my husband about this last night. He said that they could have the ability to block transactions (and unblock as needed) but he doesn't know -- it depends on their technology. And then he went on to design his ideal credit card fraud protection system.

Anyway, this might help (it's from egg's website):

Internet shopping guarantee If you're worried about shopping online, don't be. The Egg Card comes with its own Internet guarantee, so whenever you shop with your Egg Card online, we guarantee you'll be covered against any fraudulent transactions carried out without your consent, whatever the amount.

You have exactly the same rights when you're shopping on the Internet as you do when you buy from a shop, mail-order catalogue or over the phone. If you'd like a quick guide to buying online along with a comprehensive summary of what to do if something goes wrong, you can visit the website of the Office of Fair Trading.

Or you could take a look at the website for the Advertising Standards Authority.

Can't link to it for some reason, but check under "Egg Card Protection" which is in the credit card section. Get your money back then cancel the card. (Or the other way round..)

Good luck.

That's ridiculous Jan- dh is in business and when people pay by cc over the internet they have extra guarantees. he had one cc payment stopped because the guy said the goods were broken- dh sorted it out and the co put the money through. he had 2 fraudulent transactions where the cc co claimed the money back off him- these are called chargebacks. INSIST that your cc co charge the money back to your card as it is fraudulent- also if they don't you should go to the police as cc fraud is a criminal offence

The card has been cancelled now - DH rang them (he is the cardholder but I do all the paperwork so I had to tell him all the details ) and the woman he spoke to said they would just block the card. I suppose this does make sense as it may well happen again otherwise. Anyway we will get the 2 other transactions repaid.

I was able to talk to someone in Security at Egg (though not about this specific card because I am not the cardholder ) and asked her if it was possible that a rogue trader could keep trying different combinations of numbers until they hit a valid one, and she said yes. And then they could pass those numbers on to other rogue traders, and if they just take small amounts now and again there's a good chance a lot of people won't even notice; but imagine getting up to $50 at a time from, say, 10000 cards...!!!!

It didn't sound as if it would be investigated either, because it's an American transaction but an English card. She did say that if it was an English transaction they could follow it up. Egg will get our money back from the trader's bank and it will be up to them to chase the trader....sounds like a BIG loophole in the law to me!

Yes, my card was stopped (FirstDirect) because of a large transaction from an American company which their fraud system picked up on. They couldn't give any info about how they might have got hold of my details (but I guess it will have been internet hacking or something) but I'm glad they picked it up, even though it was an inconvenience. They insisted the card was stopped because the details had clearly been 'compromised'...

I kept getting emails saying I'd paid whopping amounts from my debit card. I think they were spoof emails though trying to get me to link then give my details.

My mate got stung with her CC because of internet use and since she said I've heard of lots.

It's so annoying as internet shopping's very convenient

I think you may find that actually they get your number in a good old fashioned in person transaction and then use it on the internet. I have had this problem with almost all of my cards at one time or another and it has always orginated from an in person transaction made by me. In fact in most of the cases it was because the place where I used the card had one of those old fashioned card machines that you pull back and forth and take a physical imprint of the card.
I think the chip and pin cards are supposed to help with this. Also, really internet businesses should take your security number etc. etc. before accepting your card.