Odd card fraud - being dealt with
Discussion
I got a call from my credit card company earlier
Someone today spent £28 on Groupon that went through, and then tried to spend £3198 with Thomas Cook, which is what raised the fraud flag.
Seems like a strange thing to do though - if the fraudster had bought the holiday, Thomas Cook would've known where he would be and when (ie the flight)
Can anyone explain the thinking behind this? I'm just curious. My only other thought was someone trying to get out of the country immediately, ie flight this evening and take the flight before anyone notices the fraud. I've spoken to a fraud person at the bank and they said they'll sort it and take it off my statement etc (the £28 that is)
Someone today spent £28 on Groupon that went through, and then tried to spend £3198 with Thomas Cook, which is what raised the fraud flag.
Seems like a strange thing to do though - if the fraudster had bought the holiday, Thomas Cook would've known where he would be and when (ie the flight)
Can anyone explain the thinking behind this? I'm just curious. My only other thought was someone trying to get out of the country immediately, ie flight this evening and take the flight before anyone notices the fraud. I've spoken to a fraud person at the bank and they said they'll sort it and take it off my statement etc (the £28 that is)
Saw this on one of the "Anything to Declare"? reality shows (one based at Shannon iirc).
West African couple used a cloned credit card (cloned from a Japanese victim, in Japan) to fly to Paris, then flew to Ireland (same day). Giving the excuse that the conference in Paris they were due to attend was cancelled, so they thought they'd just hop on over for the craic.
All very, very odd and looked like a dry run for drugs or similar.
Bar the dodgy card they didn't find any suspicious on the couple, well except a few kg of some sort of flour or maize, they were going to cook with, in a hotel, which they hadn't booked yet.
West African couple used a cloned credit card (cloned from a Japanese victim, in Japan) to fly to Paris, then flew to Ireland (same day). Giving the excuse that the conference in Paris they were due to attend was cancelled, so they thought they'd just hop on over for the craic.
All very, very odd and looked like a dry run for drugs or similar.
Bar the dodgy card they didn't find any suspicious on the couple, well except a few kg of some sort of flour or maize, they were going to cook with, in a hotel, which they hadn't booked yet.
Perhaps they bought lots of vouchers to quickly sell on ebay/gumtree/facebook? The voucher numbers would be checkable as legit and they are the sort of thing that would sell easily. I imagine the card transaction is linked to the vouchers and the buyer(s) holidays would be cancelled if they didn't make an alternative payment.
edit: If it was a flight as suggested above then if the flight was taken it would be hard to pin anything on the traveler - they'd say it was booked by a friend, and in all likelihood it was probably arranged through several different people, presumably they paid a fraction of the actual price.
In the same way, it used to be that when people's phones were stolen there would be hundreds of pounds in international calls billed (as the phone is passed around many people), since the value was in the account rather than the handset.
edit: If it was a flight as suggested above then if the flight was taken it would be hard to pin anything on the traveler - they'd say it was booked by a friend, and in all likelihood it was probably arranged through several different people, presumably they paid a fraction of the actual price.
In the same way, it used to be that when people's phones were stolen there would be hundreds of pounds in international calls billed (as the phone is passed around many people), since the value was in the account rather than the handset.
Edited by Gareth79 on Thursday 23 March 22:27
Jimmy Recard said:
I got a call from my credit card company earlier
Someone today spent £28 on Groupon that went through, and then tried to spend £3198 with Thomas Cook, which is what raised the fraud flag.
Seems like a strange thing to do though - if the fraudster had bought the holiday, Thomas Cook would've known where he would be and when (ie the flight)
Can anyone explain the thinking behind this? I'm just curious. My only other thought was someone trying to get out of the country immediately, ie flight this evening and take the flight before anyone notices the fraud. I've spoken to a fraud person at the bank and they said they'll sort it and take it off my statement etc (the £28 that is)
Standard MO - try a small transaction (mobile top up, Groupon, charity donation) to see if it works & if it does then try & hit it for something more sizeable.Someone today spent £28 on Groupon that went through, and then tried to spend £3198 with Thomas Cook, which is what raised the fraud flag.
Seems like a strange thing to do though - if the fraudster had bought the holiday, Thomas Cook would've known where he would be and when (ie the flight)
Can anyone explain the thinking behind this? I'm just curious. My only other thought was someone trying to get out of the country immediately, ie flight this evening and take the flight before anyone notices the fraud. I've spoken to a fraud person at the bank and they said they'll sort it and take it off my statement etc (the £28 that is)
It's reassuring that they spot this stuff though, isn't it?
It's disappointing how anal they get after one of these incidents though, don't you think?
You know, when they call you because there's been a new direct debit taken out on your account and they want to make sure it was you. and you patiently explain that, yes, the DD to pay the Council Tax for the new address that you have recently told the bank that you have moved to was raised by you and compliment them on their powers of deduction.
It's disappointing how anal they get after one of these incidents though, don't you think?
You know, when they call you because there's been a new direct debit taken out on your account and they want to make sure it was you. and you patiently explain that, yes, the DD to pay the Council Tax for the new address that you have recently told the bank that you have moved to was raised by you and compliment them on their powers of deduction.
I was in Madrid for a few days last year and used a credit card in hotels and taxis. Always check every transaction on cards about once a week. Checked the card about a week later and spot someone had booked a Vueling (BA) flight from, it transpired, a travel agent in Malaga, hundreds of miles away. They had booked it for the next day, from Barcelona to Moscow. By the time it was clocked, they had taken the flight and got away. Had to do a threeway call with the credit card firm and Vueling callcentre and say on record it was not authorised or booked by me. They confirmed it within 10mins and refunded the cash within 3 days and neither company seemed to give a sh*t about the crime. It was clearly easier for them to refund a few hundred quid and move on than spend potentially thousands chasing flighty crims. The tone of the credit card staff was pretty matter-of-fact and felt like it was a common thing for them to see.
Yipper said:
I was in Madrid for a few days last year and used a credit card in hotels and taxis. Always check every transaction on cards about once a week. Checked the card about a week later and spot someone had booked a Vueling (BA) flight from, it transpired, a travel agent in Malaga, hundreds of miles away. They had booked it for the next day, from Barcelona to Moscow. By the time it was clocked, they had taken the flight and got away. Had to do a threeway call with the credit card firm and Vueling callcentre and say on record it was not authorised or booked by me. They confirmed it within 10mins and refunded the cash within 3 days and neither company seemed to give a sh*t about the crime. It was clearly easier for them to refund a few hundred quid and move on than spend potentially thousands chasing flighty crims. The tone of the credit card staff was pretty matter-of-fact and felt like it was a common thing for them to see.
My understanding is that the volume of cases is indeed significant but then so are the costs of a full investigation. At present, on current volumes, it appears that they use the data to further improve their automated checks rather than to follow through with specific cases.The banks must be losing an absolute fortune. Mrs S3 had her business bank account hacked last week. They ordered a ton of stuff around £15 each on Next Directory (presume pick up in store rather than a delivery address), stuff from House of Fraser and Made.com and then the one that triggered the alerts was an overseas money transfer. What puzzled me was how they couldn't identify the perps through the Next or HoF pickups but I'm told for anything under £10k they don't even report it to Police. Retailers get their money (morally dubious making a profit on stolen funds ?), she got refunded, cost gets passed on one way or another to all banking customers. NatWest won't say exactly how it was committed but the level of security information they had suggests a database hack, inside job or someone not following procedures.
Yipper said:
I was in Madrid for a few days last year and used a credit card in hotels and taxis. Always check every transaction on cards about once a week. Checked the card about a week later and spot someone had booked a Vueling (BA) flight from, it transpired, a travel agent in Malaga, hundreds of miles away. They had booked it for the next day, from Barcelona to Moscow. By the time it was clocked, they had taken the flight and got away. Had to do a threeway call with the credit card firm and Vueling callcentre and say on record it was not authorised or booked by me. They confirmed it within 10mins and refunded the cash within 3 days and neither company seemed to give a sh*t about the crime. It was clearly easier for them to refund a few hundred quid and move on than spend potentially thousands chasing flighty crims. The tone of the credit card staff was pretty matter-of-fact and felt like it was a common thing for them to see.
Interesting that exactly my guess has happened to someone else. Luckily the only transaction that actually went through was £28 for me Also interesting to hear all the other comments, particularly the one about vouchers - I hadn't thought of that.
My update - the bank seems to be doing pretty well with this. They phoned me this morning to run through some other transactions (5 or 6 in total, all mine and legit) going back to December. The only new information to me is that it seems (his words) that the dodgy transactions yesterday were attempted from within the United States. The last time I used that card online was January to pay my car insurance.
Edited by Jimmy Recard on Friday 24th March 10:08
Speed 3 said:
The banks must be losing an absolute fortune. Mrs S3 had her business bank account hacked last week. They ordered a ton of stuff around £15 each on Next Directory (presume pick up in store rather than a delivery address), stuff from House of Fraser and Made.com and then the one that triggered the alerts was an overseas money transfer. What puzzled me was how they couldn't identify the perps through the Next or HoF pickups but I'm told for anything under £10k they don't even report it to Police. Retailers get their money (morally dubious making a profit on stolen funds ?), she got refunded, cost gets passed on one way or another to all banking customers. NatWest won't say exactly how it was committed but the level of security information they had suggests a database hack, inside job or someone not following procedures.
If they suspect an inside job, then you can be sure they are following it up even if they don't tell you. Banks are very, very hot on internal audit - particularly post-2008, anybody not following process or turning a blind eye will be shat on from a very great height.However if they can charge the transactions back to a retailer then that's it, pretty much job done and it's up to the retailer to sort it out.
I had my card compromised and they racked up ~£8k within a few days. Two things that really bothered me:
- First major purchase was a flight, paid on the Virgin USA website, ie billed in USD. Even the fraud team at the credit card were amazed that hadn't flagged a referral check.
- Given it was a flight, and you need ID to board the plane, how hard can it be to track the culprit(s). I understand that mostly these crimes take a lot of investigating but this must be a quick win for all concerned.
It's a real shame the credit cards just seem to write these off so easily.
- First major purchase was a flight, paid on the Virgin USA website, ie billed in USD. Even the fraud team at the credit card were amazed that hadn't flagged a referral check.
- Given it was a flight, and you need ID to board the plane, how hard can it be to track the culprit(s). I understand that mostly these crimes take a lot of investigating but this must be a quick win for all concerned.
It's a real shame the credit cards just seem to write these off so easily.
)I managed to spot a card fraud on my card the day after it happened in December of last year. I contacted the company concerned and although it had already left their warehouse (200 quids worth of clothes order!) we managed to get it turned around by the courier before delivery.
I know I would have got the money back but there was a small glow of satisfaction in knowing they'd not received the goods (and the delivery address was flagged on their system for future transactions).
I know I would have got the money back but there was a small glow of satisfaction in knowing they'd not received the goods (and the delivery address was flagged on their system for future transactions).
TallMark said:
I had my card compromised and they racked up ~£8k within a few days. Two things that really bothered me:
- Given it was a flight, and you need ID to board the plane, how hard can it be to track the culprit(s). I understand that mostly these crimes take a lot of investigating but this must be a quick win for all concerned.
It's a real shame the credit cards just seem to write these off so easily.
The person on the flight is likely to have not been the person who booked the flight, the fraudster will have sold a "genuine" holiday to an unsupecting/unwitting third party who was either pleased with the bargain or be willing to turn a blind eye. - Given it was a flight, and you need ID to board the plane, how hard can it be to track the culprit(s). I understand that mostly these crimes take a lot of investigating but this must be a quick win for all concerned.
It's a real shame the credit cards just seem to write these off so easily.
Fraudster walks off with a % of the cash and airline mostly not bothered as they have been paid.
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