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Thursday, June 07, 2007

Fraud- Nearly So

Remember, Rs 11K purchase I made in Kolkatta.
Well, when they tried to swipe my Citibank card, it failed. I then paid through HSBC and succeeded, received a SMS confirmation too.
My latest citi card statement had a bill of over Rs 12K and I thought it included the gym payment. Today I got a slight doubt and went back to check the statement in detail. To my shock- the sari payment reflected there too.
Since I did not have the shop phone number (it’s back at home), I called Citibank to check whether they received the charge slip signed by me.
It seems they are supposed to check it but rarely do so. As soon as the payment gets reflected in the system, the bill is generated.
Moreover, when I questioned the customer service person on how they cleared the transaction without the security of the signature- she was defiant. She said, at this moment only the investigation department can help me. They will give me a temporary credit and if the merchant is found guilty he will be fined and asked to pay up.
While I am strongly brand loyal to Citibank- lifetime free credit card free of charge, anytime I make a late payment, the charges has been reversed (hope this time they do it too), once my card was stolen from my home and swiped at a website – I disputed it after 2 days and they waived off the credit.. I am happy with Citibank in principle but I am shocked at the lack of vigilance. This may be true for all credit card companies I am sure.

Meanwhile, to speedup things, I called my colleague PS in Cal office. The shop is located right opposite to the office. He went their and collected the cheque for me. It seems the shopkeeper had come to the building to enquire my whereabouts but since there are so many offices in the building, he was unable to locate me.

Sigh of relief

9 comments:

The Kid said...

do they actually check the signed slip?? I never actually thought about what they did with that....

Artnavy said...

oh boy- i need to check my credit card staemnets - i never do

and the previous post- set me off to do mine- i have not been updating about anush enough...

rayshma said...

wow! i admire the shop-keeper tho. nice to know that he at least attempted locating u.

Lavs said...

I had similar experience with SCB. Once they billed us twice for a single transaction and the battle took place for about 3 months. When I had lost all my patience and was contemplating whether to lodge a consumer complaint, they quietly re-credited our account with a backdated entry. Such treatment for a person who at that point in time was working with a sister concern of SCB. It’s always better to check credit card statements with a magnifying glass.

Anonymous said...

all is well that ends well ! good to know about the shopkeeper's attempt to find you - restores one's faith in mankind :-)

I have been told to check the bank statements regularly by a bank employee friend when once I found out that we were getting charged an insurance even a year after we had cancelled it and since i never check my statements....I got all the money back but she advised that these sort of mistakes are quite common and never forget to check the statements.

Minka said...

Fictitious Fact - Radio ga-ga on the way home

She left from office early yesterday and was driving down Sardar Patel road ( at 60 !) and was thinking of you . And then heard a nice tinkling laugh on the radio talking about a rainy day . And then the voice said she has twins and their names . And she was like " I know her . I know her. She drives a black swift and hit 60 on this very same road." The cops loomed ahead, she shifted gears , hit 30 and went home with a smile on the face .


R, watch out for me - I am the one in the grey santro that zipped past you !

PS - your voice is good. The smile and laugh made it to your voice which I can hardly say of Sharmilee's imbecile giggle and Solly's guttural guffaw.

Itchingtowrite said...

ha ha Minka- caught.. i was going to post abt it and also wondering if anyone I knew had heard me!! facts are straight and the element of fiction also there to qualify as factual fiction- I had already reached home and spoke from the parking lot!!

Minka said...

No fiction there at all !! Honey , that was me doing 60 on SP Road listening to you speak on the radio.

Adding you to my blogroll (Itchingtowrite ( Momma of two in Black Swift ) ) - Hope you don't mind !

Kimberly El-Sadek said...

Given the hundreds of millions of debit and credit card swipes occurring around the world at any given time they don't check the actual paper signature slip. I highly doubt that they ever even see them. Generally the burden is on the merchant to verify the identity and signature of the person using a card. Does it always happen? No. But at least in the US you have the right to dispute a charge and unless the signature slip can be produced by the merchant you aren't liable if it was fraudulently used. Likewise there is a $50 max that you are on the hook for if your card is stolen and used, although I've never known anyone who has actually been charged that.