Protecting your cards from fraud


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Unlike elsewhere in the world, any UK cardholder who is the innocent victim of fraud is not held financially liable and the most you will ever have to pay is £50.

However, the inconvenience of reporting an incident, being without your credit card and waiting for any fraudulent activity on your card to be reversed or offset can be very upsetting and frustrating.


Visit the websites for your credit card protection:
www.cardwatch.org.uk
www.banksafeonline.org.uk
www.identitytheft.org.uk


Protect yourself from being a victim of card fraud by:

• keeping your PIN safe
• never letting your card out of sight when making a transaction
• only shopping on secure websites and from a computer that has upto-date virus protection
• carefully discarding any receipts and statements by shredding them or tearing them up
• carefully checking your monthly statement
• reporting lost/stolen cards or any suspicion of fraudulent activity immediately to your credit card company
• shielding your PIN when using your card, both at a cash machine or at in a shop.

How the cardholder is protected? The legal side of protection

Using your credit card to make purchases gives you extra protection if things go wrong – protections you don’t get paying by debit card, charge card, cheque or cash.

When you spend between £100 and £30, 000 on a purchase with your credit card you benefit from Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act (1974).

This law means that your credit card company is jointly responsible, along with the supplier of the goods or services, for any breach of contract or misrepresentation by the supplier. In practice this means that if a company fails to actually deliver the goods or services you’ve paid for – perhaps because they have gone out of business – you can get your money back from your credit card issuer.

Section 75 does not absolve the supplier who has let you down of their responsibility so in the first instance you should always try to get your money back from them first. Keep a copy of any correspondence as your card company will ask you for this.

Previous Article: Using a Credit Card

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