Odd card fraud - being dealt with

[Jimmy Recard]

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)

[Jimmy Recard]

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