Barclaycard BarclaycardUS Barclaycard World Arrival Mastercard We were the victims of fraud and can prove forgery but Barclay keeps denying our case International Nationwide
My wife and I recently went on vacation to Cozumel in January. We rented a car and filled it up at a Pemex on the island prior to returning it, but when we got back noticed a $649 charge on our Barclaycard Arrival Mastercard. I immediately called Barclay to have the card cancelled and report the fraud and the charge was removed from the account.
A couple weeks later (after returning home from vacation) Barclay calls and says that since it was a chip transaction that it's not fraud and they forward the request to the dispute department and the $649 is deducted from my account again. The dispute department requested the receipt from the gas station and were provided one. The signature on the receipt is an obvious forgery (http://imgur.com/a/X9WZh ) and after seeing that we thought our case was a slam dunk, we had a letter notarized showing our actual signatures along with copies of our driver licenses and faxed it to them (which they lost and we faxed again). In the letter we also pointed out that spending exactly 14000 pesos at a gas station in Mexico is impossible and we requested to find out what exactly we purchased for that much from the vendor (the receipt provided does not show any of this info and the address and phone number is hard to read as well).
After sending that as requested, Barclay denied our claim for the 3rd time and now we're stuck in limbo between the fraud and dispute departments where no one calls us back when they say they will and we have to explain our case 3 times a week to someone new. Barclay also does not allow you to escalate to a supervisor without waiting 48 hours for a callback. Their customer service is awful and after this is resolved we plan to cancel our card and never do business with Barclay again.
This is the whole reason this scam is so popular to prey on tourists in America, they don't allow you to pump your own gas and when you pay with a credit card they say they tried to run it, but their handheld credit card machine isn't getting a signal so you have to pay in cash just so you don't have to deal with corrupt Mexican cops where you'd probably be forced to pay a bribe in addition to the cost of the gas just to leave. In this instance, when they told us the machine wasn't working, we paid cash and were on our way. We didn't notice the fraudulent charge until we were back at the hotel that night and since our card wasn't technically stolen (still in my possession at that moment) it puts us in a grey area for how to report it. In hindsight this is why it's the perfect scam, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I can do now. Barclay isn't being helpful anymore and they honestly are treating us like we're trying to con them or something. We're very frustrated and losing $649 is a lot, I thought using a credit card was the smart move so we'd be protected against stuff like this, but I've learned my lesson to just carry cash on vacation regardless of wanting to get points for purchases.
Is there anything else we can do? Should we hire a lawyer? Has anyone else ever been through this scam before and dealt with the credit card company successfully?
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Misty P
Mechanicsville,Virginia,
USA
Additional Information
#4General Comment
Mon, March 06, 2017
My husband and I have been fighting this for almost two months. When we called and the charge was in pending, we did not have the full name of the vendor, only part. As such, it looked like it could have been the hotel that overcharged us. It wasn't until weeks later that we received the full name of the vendor, the gas station in Cozumel, that we realized what had happened. We were not expecting to see charges from the gas station, since they had told us our card was declined, and forced us to pay cash. This gas station walked away with our card, charged us $14,000 Pecos, and fraudulently signed the receipt. Barclays has the receipt, the notarized letter, copies of our driver's licenses that show how we sign our names. This is simply them refusing to work on behalf of their customers, and instead siding with the obvious thieves. If anything at all, we hope that someone thinks twice before using them as their preferred travel card, as they are not in the business of protecting their members.
I don't understand how our story changed
#4Author of original report
Mon, March 06, 2017
Originally when we filed the fraud case we thought a different transaction was at fault for the charge, which is why once it posted and we were able to google the vendor name, we updated our case. We thought the hotel issued the charge because we didn't remember using our card anywhere else. Honestly this is why this it's such a successful scam because you don't realize it until after you check your statement and have been using the card at multiple places throughout the day (not speaking the language and being surrounded by con artists in Mexico doesn't help either). We could've lied and said our card was physically stolen which would have gotten us money back for every charge made on that card throughout the day, but we thought honesty would be a better route so we described each transaction in full to Barclay as we didn't have anything to hide. This ended up being a mistake.
I know we're screwed here, but we were definitely wronged and stolen from so I wanted to get my story out to others. I will never go back to Mexico again in my life. I plan to continue posting this to Barclays twitter as well in hopes of at least costing them some business. I can't even find the address/phone number of the person who robbed me because the receipt they provided is so blurry. No one can tell me what I bought either.
It's all very frustrating...
Robert
Irvine,California,
USA
Keeping your story straight
#4Consumer Comment
Mon, March 06, 2017
In your letter you stated the following
"We have stated that the card was not in our position the whole of our stay...when we were forced to leave our card with a representative that stated that the card machine was not working, but that he would run the card later."
The fact that you left the card out of your possession(not position) is basically the death blow to your claim and in just about every case automatic denial of any fraud claim. But that would not be as concerning and possibly even be overcome if your story remained consistent. As now you state the following in this report.
"In this instance, when they told us the machine wasn't working, we paid cash and were on our way."
So if you made a mistake and actually the time your card was in another persons possession was not here then that was probably a $649 mistake as in the letter you basically made it sound like it was the same incident, and it should not have even been mentioned. If it was the same incident, then why did your story change now?
You can try to get an attorney, but to prevail against the bank it isn't a case of you proving the fraud it would be a case of proving they didn't follow their written policy or any laws in looking at your dispute. This is where the consistency of your story is an issue and you may have some issues.
You could try to go after the business in Mexico, but with it being an International situation it may end up being a victory in name only if you did happen to prevail but never see the money and you would have just spent several hundred(or thousands) of dollars to get to that point.
Sorry and Good Luck