Debit Card Warning

[Ms Jade]

Apologies to everyone for whom this old news; but if, like me, you thought a Visa debit was a good idea - read on.

I recently had some unauthorised transactions on my account which totalled over $3000. In the process of dealing with the bank (the dragon, in this case) my eyes have been opened. The short version of the story is that expected time to remedy this problem is 8 weeks. 8 weeks!!!! (had to say it again for effect).
If you have a credit card & a very compelling story the bank will often just raise the credit limit on your card, which is not terribly inconvenient. But this is not an option for a debit card. In effect, if someone steals the bank's money it will only have minimal negative effect on you - but if they steal YOUR money you will be stuffed for at least 2 months. Makes no sense but there you go.

If this does happen to you, you'll probably be told it's a "first in" system due to the backlog of claims. Of course, it's not who's first in but who screams the loudest (like most things). Mentioning the Financial Ombudsman also has an effect, as it's a cost to the bank if the FO gets involved. It took me a while, and I did get the $ back within the week, but this is no certainty. I'll be changing all transactions to one of my credit cards & just transferring funds at the end of the month.

 

[Aaron_C]

that is very interesting. Back to using OPM then

 

[Belbo]

Apologies to everyone for whom this old news; but if, like me, you thought a Visa debit was a good idea - read on.

I recently had some unauthorised transactions on my account which totalled over $3000. In the process of dealing with the bank (the dragon, in this case) my eyes have been opened. The short version of the story is that expected time to remedy this problem is 8 weeks. 8 weeks!!!! (had to say it again for effect).
If you have a credit card & a very compelling story the bank will often just raise the credit limit on your card, which is not terribly inconvenient. But this is not an option for a debit card. In effect, if someone steals the bank's money it will only have minimal negative effect on you - but if they steal YOUR money you will be stuffed for at least 2 months. Makes no sense but there you go.

If this does happen to you, you'll probably be told it's a "first in" system due to the backlog of claims. Of course, it's not who's first in but who screams the loudest (like most things). Mentioning the Financial Ombudsman also has an effect, as it's a cost to the bank if the FO gets involved. It took me a while, and I did get the $ back within the week, but this is no certainty. I'll be changing all transactions to one of my credit cards & just transferring funds at the end of the month.

Wow! Sorry to hear that happened to you, Jade, but thanks for the heads up. I'd never have known.

When debit cards went out of style - when was it? - 7 or 8 years ago, I thought they'd never come back in because they seemed too consumer-friendly (from the banks' credit dapartment's point of view). Then they made the comeback in the last couple of years, and I thought, great! - finally a win for the little folk.

Apparently not completely so.

I like the idea of people (alright, I mean negative net-worth civilians in contrast to us investors) having the opportunity to control their own spending behaviour by using debit cards. But that seems like another pie in the sky idea of financial safety too.

 

[Rolf Latham]

Hiya

I had a similar but diff issue a couple of years back

Had an ID takeover with movements of tens of ks.............now that was fun

I shall leave the lenders un named, but the response as to "how did something so stoopid and obvious" happen, was

you have your money back, now go away

ta
rolf

 

[Andrew_A]

Hiya

I had a similar but diff issue a couple of years back

Had an ID takeover with movements of tens of ks.............now that was fun

I shall leave the lenders un named, but the response as to "how did something so stoopid and obvious" happen, was

you have your money back, now go away

ta
rolf

Seems to be the same response I got.

 

[Oynas]

This is why I never use debit cards and always use credit cards.