Unauthorised CC payment

S

stoney1

Registered User
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Wondering can any one advise. Got my credit card statement, noticed a transaction I did not recognise. Rang the company and explained to them. The transaction was for a substantial amount of money and turns out that it was a yearly renewable subscription for a TV channel.

The company rang the TV chanel for me and my means of a conference call the chanel confirmed that the subscription was ordered on my credit card under my name in 2003 and was renewable every year.

When I asked them to confirm my address the address they had is of course different from mine as is the sky viewing card number. Problem is I recognised the address of that of a relative who was using my card previously and as a result I had my card and number changed in 2004 when I found out. In fact my card number has been changed twice since.

The company claim that they are not liable as recurring authorisations need to be cancelled by the person who purchased. Fine if you knew it was ordered on your card. They will accept no liability and have told me it is up to me to pay.

My point is that I changed my card and number for security reasons which I explained to them at the time but still something was charged to an invalid credit card with a different number.

The TV channel will not even cancel the subscription unless I give 30 days notice even though it is clear to all that I did not order it. The credit card company will not budge as the criteria regarding recurring authorisations are set out in their terms and conditions.

My point is that it was charged to an invalid card which was cancelled for security reasons. Does this means that if a criminal gets hold of your card number and makes a recurring authorisation that even though the card is cancelled the payment will still be taked from your account and it is up to you to cancel an authorisation which you never made.

Please advise
 
I have come across this before, but I find it hard to believe that the credit card company will not budge on this. You should push them as hard as possible.

The fact is that someone could set up all manner of fraudulent recurring charges and you (the correct card holder) have no way of knowing whether they are recurring or not.

Check the wording on the terms and conditions and throw as much back at them as possible.

If they say that the original purchaser must cancel then point out that the original purchase was unauthorised and ask the TV company for the original proof of purchase.

If they say that the card holder must cancel then point out that you have no way of knowing in advance whether the transaction is recurring or not, so it is unjust to present the transaction as a done deal if you had no advance warning.

z
 
stoney1 said:
Problem is I recognised the address of that of a relative who was using my card previously and as a result I had my card and number changed in 2004 when I found out. In fact my card number has been changed twice since.
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Was the relative using the card with or without your permission? If without did you report it as fraud to the authorities and/or credit card company or did you take the diplomatic approach and just deal with it by changing the number to prevent further use?

Unless you contributed in some way (by allowing fraudulent use to go unreported for family reasons) then I would have thought there was no "recurring authorisation" but rather a "recurring fraud". If the original authorisation was fraudulent and you reported that the card had been compromised then any recurring charges are surely not authorised. Did you notice the original charge when first set up and dispute it?
 
This is outrageous especially when you changed your card the minute you suspected it was being used without your knowledge. You need to start putting everything in writing and if neccessary, complain to the Ombudsman for Credit Institutions. You need to start being a pain.....in writing! What about the relative? Have you taken steps to ensure that this will not recurr? If the bank know it's a relative they may try and infer that you somehow let them use the card so I would keep schtum there.....
 
I tried to deal with the situation as diplomatically as possible and changed my card as soon as I found out about the unauthorised transaction.

While the CC company is aware that I know who was using the card they are not aware that it is a relative. They keep pressing me to go to the Gardai which for obvious reasons I dont want to do.

What does annoy me is that I have to write to this TV channel to ask them to cancel the subscription. By that very fact am I admitting liability as I never set it up in the first place.

Also while credit card companies keep banging on about fraud how was a transaction allowed to go through even though the company had the wrong address on the original authorisation.

The sad thing is that they know they have me as without going to the gardai they will not accept that the transaction was unauthorised.
 
I don't think it is hugely unreasonable of them to insist that you go to the Gardai, though I'm wondering if this is more of a delaying ploy/tactic on their part. I can understand your reasons for not wanting to do this, but in fairness to them, that's not their problem.
 
It does appear totally unfair and a possible enquiry to the Financial Services Ombudsman seems a good initial approach.

One thing though that springs to mind is that all direct debits etc. on credit cards are automatically redirected to the new number so cancelling three times and rearranging new cards would not have had any effect on halting the payment, unfortunately.
 
At what stage was the credit card company aware of the issue? If they knew about it when you changed cards, they should have removed any recurring direct debit on the card.
 
i have had problems with items turning up on my credit card bill unexplicably. In that case, i faxed (won't accept phone) the credit card company arguing the charge was not mine. The CC company looked for the signed authorisation from the shop. when not forthcoming, the charge was taken off my account.

however on another occassion, i had booked and paid for a function in a hotel with my credit card, a family member who was invited to the function, booked a room in the hotel, but didn't stay. the hotel charged me for the room. I challenged the charge, but the CC company couldn't help as the hotel argued the charge was legit.
i was forced to seek redress in the small claims court. Cost €9, but i got my money back. (i also told everyone i know about the hotel, word of mouth a great thing).
 
Seagull said:
At what stage was the credit card company aware of the issue? If they knew about it when you changed cards, they should have removed any recurring direct debit on the card.
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They should but the financial whatsityacallums need to clarify this issue as a matte rof urgency, I know someone who changed card number twice (same provider) AND cancelled the dd thing by leaving a note on file saying he would not pay it but it went thru again and there was an awful palaver about it

there must be a way to cancel these damn credit card DDs in a straightforward manner.
 
etel said:
They should but the financial whatsityacallums need to clarify this issue as a matte rof urgency, I know someone who changed card number twice (same provider) AND cancelled the dd thing by leaving a note on file saying he would not pay it but it went thru again and there was an awful palaver about it

there must be a way to cancel these damn credit card DDs in a straightforward manner.
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I'm guessing (but I'm open to correction) that the root cause of these problems is that the billing party does not need explicit advance permission to hit your account with a DD. Hitting you with a DD charge is probably no different than hitting your account with a restaurant bill or a shopping bill. No prior notice is needed. The DD form is only checked if there is a query.

Can anyone with inside knowledge confirm or deny?
 
Actually - the hotel charge probably was legit - they lost out on selling a room and the family member may have used your name/function name when making the booking otherwise the hotel would have asked for THEIR cc number to secure booking. I would get the money back off said family member tho.......you need to tackle the root of this problem which are the relatives that are being so unfair to you.....(to be polite)
 
Have you challenged the bank to produce the original direct debit mandate? Have them compare the signature on the form to your signature on file. If that's not valid, then the bank should be liable.
 
Danmo said:
Actually - the hotel charge probably was legit - they lost out on selling a room and the family member may have used your name/function name when making the booking otherwise the hotel would have asked for THEIR cc number to secure booking. I would get the money back off said family member tho.......you need to tackle the root of this problem which are the relatives that are being so unfair to you.....(to be polite)
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The hotel charge is most certainly NOT legit, unless the risk of getting room bills charged to your CC account was made clear in the T&C's of the function room booking.
 
I have an inlaw who often asks to use my card for reserving hotels and stuff etc. I find it quite annoying because I know sooner or later something like this will happen.

Also I find it hard enough to keep track of my own financial affairs without other peoples crap mixed in.
 
RainyDay said:
The hotel charge is most certainly NOT legit, unless the risk of getting room bills charged to your CC account was made clear in the T&C's of the function room booking.
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It's normal hotel policy to ask for a cc number when booking a hotel and charge for a no-show. All I am saying that is that the relative could have inferred that the cc number that was being held for the function would cover the room as well.
 
Danmo said:
It's normal hotel policy to ask for a cc number when booking a hotel and charge for a no-show. All I am saying that is that the relative could have inferred that the cc number that was being held for the function would cover the room as well.
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But only the CC holder would have the rights to do this. It would be up to the hotel to check the bona fides of any CC used to secure accomadation. If they can't be bothered then they are liable.
 
The hotel charge is most certainly NOT legit, unless the risk of getting room bills charged to your CC account was made clear in the T&C's of the function room booking.
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The room wasn't booked by us, the guest rang separately and booked the room. The only knowledge we had of the booking was when the hotel came looking for the guest, they asked us where they were. (i don't know if at the time of the booking they said they were attending the function or because they shared a surname).
The first we knew about the hotel charging us for the room was when my credit card bill arrived (shows how important it is to check them)
Next time i'll pay by check
 
I work for Barclaycard in UK and if a ch states that they have a fraudulent transaction on their a/c and it turns out to be "family fraud" then the ch must be willing to prosecute, without this they will not touch it.

secondly, direct debits are not set up on credit cards, they are agreements between the ch and they merchant with the credit card company being the method of payment so any cancellation must be with the merchant direct(they are not protected by the direct debit guarantee). Visa/mcard regulations state that you must allow the merchant 14 days to act upon your instructions, charges within this period will need to be disputed with the merchant, anything after this can be disptued via the credit card company as long as you can provide either a copy of the cancellation letter or a letter confirming the cancelation date. also bear in mind visa and m/card regs have strict time limits, so anything outside these limits cannot be disputed and therefore the ch is liable. thats why its so important to check your statement and advise your credit card company straight away of any disputed charges.


I hope you manage to sort this out.


regards
xx
 
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