Ouch...fraud on my Virgin Amex..not a good start

Only been using the Virgin Amex card for 10 days...thought i was getting on ok..but just discovered over 2000 pound worth of fraudulent use on the card!

MBNA have stopped the card...I have to ring the fraud department tomorrow as they're not open till 8am

I've been using some different online shops because my usual ones don't take amex....Not the best of starts!

A long time ago, I had an insidence of fraud on my card. It too was an MBNA card, and their security was woefully lacking.
Basically, sometime over christmas they had decided to upgrade my card to platinum, and without telling me, sent out a new card. (In those days it was pretty obvious that the envelope contained credit cards).
Of course, I wasn't expecting a new card to arrive, so wasn't concerned that one hadn't arrived.
I then got a phone call on New Years day from their fraud department asking me if I had been using my card with number XXXX. This didn't match my current card number, so it was all a little confusing until we realised that I had been upgraded and this upgraded card had obviously been stolen in the post.

A short while later new cards arrived, this time in a sedondary envelope sandwhiched between card, for security reasons!
And then the bill with the fraudulant use arrived, it was quite interesting to see how quickly they racked up the credit limit!

Worryingly it was in the days before extensive online use and fraud protection, and you where generally liable for any use until you reported the card stolen, and since I didn't even know the card was coming, I didn't know it had been stolen. Fortunately MBNA didn't hold me liable for anything... I still cancelled the cards with them though as I was disgusted this kind of situation was allowed to happen.

Do you still get the miles on fraudulant use?

[Scrooge]

Well of course I am sorry this has happened to you [:#]

Of course there is a bright side..use those miles quick [:0]

bad news indeed. I'm still amazed that they found somewhere that accepted amex!

[Neil]

The one and only time I've suffered with Credit card fraud I must admit MBNA were excellent, called me up, told me about it when I confirmed it wasn't my transactions they cancelled the card straight away and told me to forget about the charges they would sort it all out, faxed me a form within minutes, I signed it and was the last I heared about it[y][y]

This was all done within abt 36 hours of the transactions starting to take place, so maybe MBNA aren't always bad[:0]

Neil:)

[:0][:(!][V][:0][:(!][V][:0][:(!][V]

I can't beleive it. On the same day I was ranting about MBNA's lax security on this very thread I was going through my mail that had been sent on to me from home, and what did I find from MBNA/Virgin?

"We've noticed you've not been using your card much lately, and are worried you've forgotten your PIN. So here is a reminder...."

It was of course in this new fangled security scratch and sniff paper thing (am I the only one who can't see the number after I've scratched and sniffed? It's like those 3D optical illusion things!!!),
but that security is only useful to show it has been tampered with.

As I said above, if you are not expecting something to be sent to you, then you will not be concerned if it goes missing.

And what is worse, it could have sat around in my house in the same pile of letters as any number of credit cards that had been sent to me becuase the old ones were expiring, or even put in a bundle of letters and sent to the other side of the world, with all sorts of opportunities for prying eyes.

DO NOT SEND ME A PIN NUMBER REMINDER UNLESS I ASK FOR IT!!!!!

I feel better now But I think I'll be writing to complain to MBNA, and Virgin (they chose MBNA)!