Online Scam

[Drew3000]

Ok guys i will try to keep it as short as possible and i want to start off by apologizing for my english.

 

My sister just bought 200€ worth of clothes off a fake tommy hilfiger website.

Without posting the link i will try to describe it: it is a straight copy of the tommy design, it is not a secured website, chrome even tells me : Your connection to this site is not secured. They made it look exactly like the real deal. 

 

At the checkout page, it is not trough a secured third party site, you straight enter the card details ( i imagine that is not a shop, someone takes the creditcard information and makes a real transaction)

 

She received a sms on her phone from the bank saying: You authorized the payment of 1663.48 CNY to ****

 

That is roughly 213€

 

In my opinion her creditcard details were stolen. When i told her that, she immediately called the bank and to my shock, they were not at all willing to listen, help, or in any way tell her what to do.

 

I am truly at a loss here, what is the right thing to do? 

 

[TheAndroidSentByCyberlife]

what country are you in?

[MrDrWho13]

2 minutes ago, Drew3000 said:

Ok guys i will try to keep it as short as possible and i want to start off by apologizing for my english.

 

My sister just bought 200€ worth of clothes off a fake tommy hilfiger website.

Without posting the link i will try to describe it: it is a straight copy of the tommy design, it is not a secured website, chrome even tells me : Your connection to this site is not secured. They made it look exactly like the real deal. 

 

At the checkout page, it is not trough a secured third party site, you straight enter the card details ( i imagine that is not a shop, someone takes the creditcard information and makes a real transaction)

 

She received a sms on her phone from the bank saying: You authorized the payment of 1663.48 CNY to ****

 

That is roughly 213€

 

In my opinion her creditcard details were stolen. When i told her that, she immediately called the bank and to my shock, they were not at all willing to listen, help, or in any way tell her what to do.

 

I am truly at a loss here, what is the right thing to do? 

 

Cancel the card before they use it to make more payments. I'm not sure what you can do to get the money back. You may have buyer protection with a credit card but if the bank isn't co-operating then I doubt it.

[Drew3000]

I am in the UK, she is in Romania

[TheAndroidSentByCyberlife]

4 minutes ago, Drew3000 said:

I am in the UK, she is in Romania

you need to quote people. 
Is her bank in the UK? 

[TheAndroidSentByCyberlife]

Because it is fraud the bank has a legal obligation to deal with this. (at least in the uk)

[Drew3000]

7 minutes ago, Reallifecat said:

you need to quote people. 
Is her bank in the UK? 

It's a multinational bank called ING Group, but she is using the Romanian branch

 

If it helps in any way keep in mind that Romania is a member of the European Union

[LogicalDrm]

Its not really card theft as she authorized payment. I would say close card and suffer the loss of €200. If that purchase had been made without card holders consent, it would be different. She could try to go to police and insurance company with that, but I would say its lost money.

[Drew3000]

3 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Its not really card theft as she authorized payment. I would say close card and suffer the loss of €200. If that purchase had been made without card holders consent, it would be different. She could try to go to police and insurance company with that, but I would say its lost money.

Sounds reasonable BUT help me with this. She didn't really authorize anything, just went to that site, entered the details pressed confirm and she got a confirmation sms from the bank. Fair enough. I bank with NatWest and whenever i make a purchase of this amount i have to authorize it with my password but leaving this aside, the site is tommyses.com and when i made a fake account, added something to my basked and tried to check out it didn't seem like a shop... It's hard for me to explain with my limited english but it just feels like she entered her details and they got sent to a guy somewhere and he used them to make the purchase on another site if that makes any sense.

 

Furthermore the transaction didn't go through yet and the bank is unwilling to cancel it. Isn't that within her right to request the cancellation considering it's a fraudulent website she made the purchase on? Even if indeed it was a silly mistake on her side

 

I know I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel but is there anything else we can do or at least try? 

[LogicalDrm]

14 minutes ago, Drew3000 said:

Sounds reasonable BUT help me with this. She didn't really authorize anything, just went to that site, entered the details pressed confirm and she got a confirmation sms from the bank. Fair enough. I bank with NatWest and whenever i make a purchase of this amount i have to authorize it with my password but leaving this aside, the site is tommyses.com and when i made a fake account, added something to my basked and tried to check out it didn't seem like a shop... It's hard for me to explain with my limited english but it just feels like she entered her details and they got sent to a guy somewhere and he used them to make the purchase on another site if that makes any sense.

 

Thats how scam sites work. While they might not get initial money, they get details as soon as "confirm" button is pressed. Depends on amount and bank if money goes through or not.

 

14 minutes ago, Drew3000 said:

Furthermore the transaction didn't go through yet and the bank is unwilling to cancel it. Isn't that within her right to request the cancellation considering it's a fraudulent website she made the purchase on? Even if indeed it was a silly mistake on her side

 

Sure, but it would depend on bank and terms of card how those things go. I've had my card details actually stolen. They got really small amount, like €50 or something like that. But it took 3 months to get it refund. And warning from bank to not try to scam them (I guess trying to claim some legit purchase non-legit).

 

14 minutes ago, Drew3000 said:

I know I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel but is there anything else we can do or at least try? 

 

Try again with bank, contact company handling card purchases (if its different from bank), contact local police, contact local consumer protection agency. There's always option to sue someone, but I bet there's something said in terms for card that gives bank option to not go through refund process. It isn't really cheap or easy for them, which is why they don't do it for authorized purchases.

[Drew3000]

5 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

 

Thats how scam sites work. While they might not get initial money, they get details as soon as "confirm" button is pressed. Depends on amount and bank if money goes through or not.

 

 

Sure, but it would depend on bank and terms of card how those things go. I've had my card details actually stolen. They got really small amount, like €50 or something like that. But it took 3 months to get it refund. And warning from bank to not try to scam them (I guess trying to claim some legit purchase non-legit).

 

 

Try again with bank, contact company handling card purchases (if its different from bank), contact local police, contact local consumer protection agency. There's always option to sue someone, but I bet there's something said in terms for card that gives bank option to not go through refund process. It isn't really cheap or easy for them, which is why they don't do it for authorized purchases.

Thanks mate, ill get on it the first thing in the morning, i will post the results.

[Cieronph]

Try potentially contacting a fraud line for the bank, rather than just the branch. You are more likely to get someone who can actually help and knows the legals around it. If they're in Europe while they may not have an obligation to refund or cancel the transaction (it all depends on exactly how the site took the data) they DO have an obligation to investigate any formal reports, so defiantly report it through the official means.