Discussion
Background: Friend has a restaurant and received a telephone booking from a guy who said three of his mates would be dining and he wanted to pay £100 up front towards their bill. My friend took the debit card number, the postcode and first line of address that the card was registered to and all received authorisation from bank. The three 'mates' turned up, and their bill came to just under £100. Fast forward one week, plod turns up at restaurant and informs friend he has been the victim of fraud and bank then claims £100 back. Needless to say my friend is nonplussed. He says he followed the correct procedure for taking booking over the phone by following banks authorisation process. What more could he have done?
It seems these culprits have committed this scam successfully at a few local restaurants and restaurants are losing out. Why have the bank taken back the money when my friend did everything correctly?
It seems these culprits have committed this scam successfully at a few local restaurants and restaurants are losing out. Why have the bank taken back the money when my friend did everything correctly?
Z4monster said:
Did they show up with the card they prepaid on. If he gave the rest back how did he doe the refund?
They didn't have the card as their 'mate' made the booking with his card. They cheekily left the couple of pounds as a tip.According to the police the card was stolen. How did they know the postcode and first line of the card holders address? And why, given he'd satisfied the 'security procedure' for the bank, did they take the £100 back? Surely that's their loss, not his?
susanq said:
They didn't have the card as their 'mate' made the booking with his card. They cheekily left the couple of pounds as a tip.
According to the police the card was stolen. How did they know the postcode and first line of the card holders address? And why, given he'd satisfied the 'security procedure' for the bank, did they take the £100 back? Surely that's their loss, not his?
Is he authorised to do "Cardholder Not Present" transactions for final payment? Seems unlikely that a restaurant would be.According to the police the card was stolen. How did they know the postcode and first line of the card holders address? And why, given he'd satisfied the 'security procedure' for the bank, did they take the £100 back? Surely that's their loss, not his?
Obtaining address & postcode is trivial - as is getting hold of any of the numbers.
herewego said:
Surely he should have asked for the 3 digit authorisation code from the back of the card.
He should have asked to see the card they took the booking on when the group were seated.Or if he doesn't want to do that for whatever reason then just needs to accept the occasional scam like this one, is a cost of doing business.
He sold to people who were not the card holder. CNP fraud is the last major problem in fraud. The whole thing would have rung alarm bells to me, but then I work in this area day in day out and am not having to worry about running a restaurant at the same time.
I would say don't take payment over the phone unless you have to. Doing that also risks valid card holders doing charge backs.
I would say don't take payment over the phone unless you have to. Doing that also risks valid card holders doing charge backs.
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