KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!!!

[Bipeguy03]

Hey guys,

Well as some of you may have seen on a couple of my other posts on here the other day I learned someone had gotten ahold of my Debit card number and drained my bank account of over a grand in 8 separate transactions on PlayStation crap.

Well I've been in contact everyday with my bank, and they continued to give me the same old rhetoric about how they are sorry and they feel for me and so on but it will take about 90 days to resolve the issue.

Well, my bank account is empty. I have no money to buy gas to go to work, lucky my boss is awesome and for the most part I get to work from home, but that won't hold true for 90 days.

"Well we're sorry but we need time to do our job" I got. That's fine, but what they didn't know is I spent the 6 days waiting doing research of my own and realized that my Bank, Huntington Bank (Ohio and Michigan) is trying to break the law, and you need to know the law.

The Electronic Funds Transfer Act regulated what banks do when fraud is reported, and spells out consumer rights. A few things you NEED to know if this ever happens to you.

-If reported within 2 business days of receiving your statement with the fraudulent charges you are only liable for $50

-If reported between 3-59 days after receiving your statement with the fraudulent charges you may be liable for up to $500

-After 60 days you may be liable for the full amount reported as fraud.

So monitor your accounts and report ASAP!! Luckily I reported mine the SAME DAY it happened. Also, if your bank tries to lie to you as mine did you need to know:

-If your account is less than 30 days old the bank has up to 90 days to resolve the issue
-If your account is older than 31 days but younger than 1 year the bank has up to 60 days to resolve the issue
-If your account is older than a year the bank has less than 45 days to resolve the issue

Further more, according to REG E of the EFTA the bank is BOUND BY LAW to issue you a provisional credit within 10 DAYS, in the full amount that was fraudulently charged. NOT 10 Business days, 10 CALENDER DAYS. My bank tried to tell me I had to request provisional credit to get it sooner than 30 days, WHICH IS A LIE..

Anyway, after 6 days of going into the bank everyday and basically being an a**hole until I get the branch manager everyday I finally got my provisional credit issued to me today, and told they would expedite my claim. Probably because now I have their money.

So, got to know your rights. Credit Cards are even more strict on the bank and have more protection for the consumer. And needless to say, when this is resolved I'll be closing my account at Huntington Bank.

Bipeguy03
James McCormick

 

[Mikeq]

James hate to hear this happened to you and it seems to happens more and more these days...were you able to figure out how your card # was stolen? I had a friend purchase alcohol at a hotel club with his debit card while attending a out of state factory seminar a few year ago and didn't discover his account was depleted until he got back home.. He never got fully compensated and also wound up changing banks over it. Bottom line the banks are absolutely out for themselves and really could care less if you got ripped off.

 

[Bipeguy03]

James hate to hear this happened to you and it seems to happens more and more these days...were you able to figure out how your card # was stolen? I had a friend purchase alcohol at a hotel club with his debit card while attending a out of state factory seminar a few year ago and didn't discover his account was depleted until he got back home.. He never got fully compensated and also wound up changing banks over it. Bottom line the banks are absolutely out for themselves and really could care less if you got ripped off.

It was pure and simple hacking, it came up PlayStation Sony Entertainment CA on my statement. I have never been to California, I don't own a PlayStation nor have I ever had a PlayStation account. In the 10 years I've had my account I have never purchased anything from Sony, and I have the statements to prove it, then they got me for $1100 on 8 transactions in less than an hour.

I'm pretty cautious with my bank accounts, I only use web sites that use PayPal or VeriSign. I run my debit card as a credit card so that nobody can look over my shoulder to get my pin, don't use it at gas station pumps so on. With that said, I think I'm going to have 2 bank accounts at 2 banks now. One that has my money in it, and if I need to make an electronic purchase, I'll go to the bank and withdraw the money then go deposit it in the other bank to make the purchase. That way the less secure account never has more than 10 bucks or so in it.

I kinda figure they are probably gonna find some loop hole to try and screw me, but honestly they would be screwing the wrong person, cause I'm not afraid to spend most of that money in lawyers to get it back lol.

 

[Mikeq]

You know when I use my debit card as a credit card for on line purchases they usually ask for that 3 digit number on the back as added security to prove you possess the card but apparently if you've been hacked then all that information was gathered. I have been considering getting one of those alert systems like LifeLock to at least alert me that one of my cards is being used for purchase without my knowledge. Not sure exactly how that works or if it would have prevented your situation but at least you would have found out about the fraudulent transactions sooner than you did and maybe you could have stopped some of it. Your method of using two banks seems plausible... that way if you ever get hacked again there will be a limit on how much they are able to steal from you.

 

[Bipeguy03]

That's what make me think it was just a pure luck (or unlucky) situations. Most hackers write algorithms to randomly put numbers together at random websites and banks untill it gets a hit.

My Irish (McCormick) luck got me again and my card number is one of the ones that dinged. But it does worry me that my bank will try and tell me that it had to be me because it had the CVV2 number. But in reality, it's a crapshoot on which sites ask for it, so that excuse isn't going to fly with me.

I'm starting to look into that life lock stuff as well, I don't think it would have saved me anything though because luckily I pretty much caught it as it was happening, they just didn't shut the card off before I ran out of money for them to steal.

 

[Mikeq]

But in reality, it's a crapshoot on which sites ask for it, so that excuse isn't going to fly with me.

This is true, I have used my cards for purchases were the three digit number wasn't asked for and maybe this thief knew where to use your card number without having to use it. I certainly hope you are able to resolve this and get your money back. It seems to me the bank should reimburse you since you can prove that your card was stolen... After all $1100 is a lot of money to you and me but it is just a drop in the bucket to the bank.

 

[Bipeguy03]

This is true, I have used my cards for purchases were the three digit number wasn't asked for and maybe this thief knew where to use your card number without having to use it. I certainly hope you are able to resolve this and get your money back. It seems to me the bank should reimburse you since you can prove that your card was stolen... After all $1100 is a lot of money to you and me but it is just a drop in the bucket to the bank.

I'm not going to let them get it from me without a fight!!