-
For the second time in several years, my wife’s Barclaycard has been used for fraudulent transactions; luckily spotted by the bank and most blocked, but one for £5 test got through.
We only ever use the card via Curve; the physical card has sat in my office since it arrived over 2 years ago, other than for the first transactions I did in person at our local supermarket, to enable chip and pin.
So, it seems to me that it must be an inside job, as the card details are not used anywhere else, online, or in her google wallet.Thought I’d share the information, to see if there are other opinions, and any similar experiences.
I wish organisations were able to work together to stop this. Barclaycard could talk to Amazon to investigate names and addresses linked to the fraudulent use at Amazon. But they won’t, quoting GDPR all over the place no doubt.
For the second time in several years, my wife’s Barclaycard has been used for fraudulent transactions; luckily spotted by the bank and most blocked, but one for £5 test got through.
We only ever use the card via Curve; the physical card has sat in my office since it arrived over 2 years ago, other than for the first transactions I did in person at our local supermarket, to enable chip and pin.
So, it seems to me that it must be an inside job, as the card details are not used anywhere else, online, or in her google wallet.Thought I’d share the information, to see if there are other opinions, and any similar experiences.
I wish organisations were able to work together to stop this. Barclaycard could talk to Amazon to investigate names and addresses linked to the fraudulent use at Amazon. But they won’t, quoting GDPR all over the place no doubt.
I’ve had two lots of fraudulent transactions on my BC Avios + card in the last 12 months, one lot of Facebook advertising transactions and more recently, Playstation. Same each time, a few 1p tests before a larger transaction attempt, £699 form Playstation. To be fair to BC their systems detected it both times and stopped / refunded everything.
It’s the faff and having to get new cards sent out that is the most frustrating bit for me.
We only ever use the card via Curve; the physical card has sat in my office since it arrived over 2 years ago, other than for the first transactions I did in person at our local supermarket, to enable chip and pin.
So, it seems to me that it must be an inside job, as the card details are not used anywhere else, online, or in her google wallet.Curve card users should be freezing their cards until ready for use – not ideal, but it is a solution.
It’s the faff and having to get new cards sent out that is the most frustrating bit for me.
Capital on Tap credit card has a virtual credit card number system, which keeps your physical card number masked, so if any fraud took place on the virtual card number, then you just cancel the virtual card and generate a new one, without having to order a new underlying card.
Both Revolut and Wise also have similar processes.
In this day and age, I really do not know why more card issuers are not implementing this technology for their customers.
Obviously it doesn’t guard against inside-job fraud but certainly would help with other types.
@Skywalker – I would think that the concept of virtual cards is way outside the ken of the average cardholder. I’m not sure why you say someone should freeze their Curve card any more than they should freeze any other card? It smacks of pure prejudice. I have held the Curve card since just before public launch, never frozen it and never had any fraud. Maybe I will suffer fraud on it tomorrow, but I have had fraud on my BAPP and Amex PRG, never on my HSBC WE or Barclaycard Avios. I could freeze them between transactions but they all have recurring transactions and others which I authorise at a given moment but don’t know when they will charge the card so freezing is unsuitable.
Re the faff of ordering a new physical card, it’s not a consideration when the card provider can put the replacement card into your Apple Pay for immediate use. I like the physical cards as well because using them from time to time forces me to remember the PINs which are required in a number of situations.
I’ve had 2 issues with the exact same fraudulent transaction within a week. I had a message from Barclaycard last week which was weirdly for £0 (presume a test transaction so larger ones could be put through), spoke to them and got the card cancelled/new one issued.
Literally received the new card on Saturday and have not even signed the card nor used it but had the exact same £0 transaction occur which again they notified me about! When I spoke to them on the phone they said it was linked to Apple Pay and then they removed it from Apple Pay and will issue another new card.
Sounds like this is not the case for you but it was a bit of a shock how quickly the fraud restarted given the new card number but Apple Pay seemed to update the number automatically without me doing anything.
I would think that the concept of virtual cards is way outside the ken of the average cardholder. I’m not sure why you say someone should freeze their Curve card any more than they should freeze any other card? It smacks of pure prejudice.
JDB – re: prejudice – that is a very sweeping generalisation. I try to be very balanced on this site with my views and try to think of things from all sides (not just my own perspective) and hopefully my posts reflect this.
For the record, other cards from other issuers are available, and I do indeed freeze my other cards where the facility exists – not just Curve (which I incidentally closed due to their incompetence, recorded on another thread).
Given my own experiences of the card and the number of reports on HfP re Curve Fraud, the conclusion that I (and others) have drawn is that the card is to be frozen when not in use.
Your experiences will of course vary and are of course different to others.
The methods I have mentioned might not be for you and it might not represent your views JDB, but the advice I have given is there to help anyone who reads and needs it – you never know who might read and think “this works for me”.
Curve card users should be freezing their cards until ready for use – not ideal, but it is a solution.
The reason I freeze curve (or actually just set it to curve cash so the maximum fraud I could suffer is under £1) is because their response to fraud on my card has taken several weeks. I have experienced fraud on other cards and these were dealt with as soon as I was available to phone the issuer.
However the way I read the OP is that their barclaycard details were compromised directly, in which case freezing curve would not have helped.
Curve user here, never had an issue but I freeze it. Only use it to front and abroad.
Having read the replies, I realise my initial post could have been worded better. I wasn’t insinuating that there is a problem with Curve, the fraudulent transactions were not linked to Curve; in fact they stand out so clearly BECAUSE they don’t have the CRV prefix on the transaction list. My suggestion was more that any inside job would be a Barclaycard employee who can access details of my wife’s Barclaycard, because we have not used the physical Barclaycard anywhere else, other than the initial supermarket spend around 2 years ago.
For the record, I have never experienced anything negative with Curve, and am a big fan, and advocate of theirs. Several friends and family have followed my recommendation to use Curve, and not had any problems at all.
But I have to acknowledge that if I’m suggesting an inside job, then the only other place we have logged details of my wife’s Barclaycard will be the Curve app. So in theory it could be someone at Barclaycard, or possibly at Curve, with the ability to access full details of the card.
Either way, the Barclaycard team have been very quick to respond.
@Pointsamateur I am glad Barclaycard was quick to respond and I am also glad you are having a good experience with Curve – long may it continue 🙂
As I have said elsewhere on this forum, I used to be a very big fan of Curve card and was also a huge advocate of theirs. Unfortunately things went wrong at their end (acknowledged by way of upheld complaint) and the summary is I no longer have the card.
Given the circumstances you describe though, it does sound as if your Barclaycard details were compromised internally, unless fraudsters have now found a way to extract underlying card details!
I also freeze my Curve not because I don’t trust the tech/cyber security element, but its customer service and its responsiveness. We read enough here to justify this, I believe.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
