Comments on: Debit Card Disputes and How They Work

By: Sofia

Sofia — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 01:27:33 +0000

I was traveling in morocco.
-I fell into this scam of carpet buying where people take you to the market and pitch you a story that how you can sell these carpets in 10 times what you pay here. I ended up agreeing to purchase a carpet with a debit card from citibank. Merchant took down my shipping information to ship the product. then in the midst of it i realized it is a scam and asked the merchant to cancel this transaction and i do not want the product. Merchant refused to cancel. I called the bank and informed them what happened. it is been a month I have not received the carpets. citibank is not giving me the credit and they are saying they are investigating. I provided everything they asked for, the receipt and some additional information and detail of what happened. I still have not received any product from the merchant.
Please advise what i should do at this point. Citi debit is linked with MasterCard.

By: Mr. Not the Jet Set

Mr. Not the Jet Set — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 13:22:47 +0000

Alvin-
Sorry, but it sounds like you signed up for it. It’s kinda like so many folks complaining about their credit card interest rate getting jacked from 3% to 30% for no reason. They can do that – it’s in those ‘Terms of Agreement’. Always understand what you are signing up for. As for your $99 over the past 9 months…. you’re really at their mercy here unless their sales process is at fault here, and you can say that this was not made clear to you.

Simon-
In your situation, it is not on Visa to solve this. It’s your bank. But, since you did get Visa to take your info – did they give it to your bank? Really, the laws should still protect you. In the first 60 days, it should be on the bank. If you haven’t solved this yet, then I’d be making daily phone calls to this bank until I got action.

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:52:41 +0000

Ok here is my experience, my visa debit card was stolen this past weekend, and the person who stole it somehow had my pin too, as soon as i noticed my card was missing i called the visa center to report it and block any access to my checking account, at that point everything was cool as my gf checked right away my account online and there was no unauthorized transactions, however surprisingly visa redirected me to my bank customer service and i was told that they only handle gift/prepaid cards and that i have to call back during business hours!!! i called visa again and they said they can’t block my card cuz my bank doesn’t give them access, and the only way to block it is to give them my card number! so honestly, how the hell am i supposed to give them my visa number if i m calling to report it as stolen? anyway visa filed a report (only when i asked to speak to a manager) and asked me to contact my bank on Monday to do the paperwork, so as a result of both visa and my bank incompetence and as of monday morning, i had $1900 of unauthorized transactions, now with -102 on my account that’s really a nice way to start the week :) thanks visa and westsuburban bank

By: Alvin

Alvin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:31:14 +0000

I was wondering if someone here can help me out. I signed up to a service which has a $99 initial payment. So I did that. I overlooked the fact (in the Terms of Agreement, who reads this anyway :[ ) that it’s $99/month. It’s been charging my debit card $99 a month since June ‘09. I recently checked my online bank account and found out that I’ve been paying all these months $99 to this company. I didn’t get any bill on the email or in the regular mail. Just charges on my bank account. I’d like to get back what was taken. My defense is I never received recurring bills from them at all (which is true). And their website do not show billing history of these monthly payments and no monthly notice of the charges. Do I have a chance of getting what I lost in those 9 months? I’m from California.

Thanks
Alvin

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:00:12 +0000

Maybe terms of service are changing for all cards, but I don’t recall seeing so many upset customers regarding disputes on Credit Cards as I see today with Debit cards. I work for a bank and I see a lot of declined disputes on Debit Cards as opposed to credit cards. With a credit card there is a receipt with a signature, with a debit card I see a lot of receipts presented with no signature and the disputes are declined by the bank. For example rental cars and hotel bills. Almost always see these disputes declined. Maybe Credit card carriers were more lenient in the past, but Credit Card holders always seemed to have more rights then debit cards I see today.

By: How to Pull Off A Successful Credit Card Dispute | Master Your Card

How to Pull Off A Successful Credit Card Dispute | Master Your Card — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:07:38 +0000

[...] that has a good chance of being successful. Bear in mind, we’re not talking here about cases of fraudulent activity, in which case you should cancel the card and notify the bank and other authorities. These are [...]

By: The other side of the card — Almost Frugal- a frugal blog

The other side of the card — Almost Frugal- a frugal blog — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:35:21 +0000

[...] however, as it will be a goldmine of valuable information. They also offer more protection against fraudulent purchases than debit [...]

By: Mr.NtJS

Mr.NtJS — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:02:09 +0000

I guess I left that part out. Again, not wanting to pitch for BofA, but in either case – disputes or fraud – the onus was on the bank. Missing funds were credited to our account by the next day.

I’ve since made it a priority to inquire about a bank’s fraud protection and account policies before opening an account. I know that some banks are still in the dark about all of these issues, but it certainly is not the case everywhere. Like I said above, even our local po-dunk bank has a pretty sweet fraud protection system.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:45:40 +0000

I think the main difference between debit and credit is that if your debit card is compromised, you don’t typically get that money back in your checking account until the bank sorts it out.

On a credit card, they flag those charges and don’t hold them againist your balance until the investigation is final.

This is just another good reason to have an emergency fund if you need cash on hand if your checking account was drained by debit fraud but you still have bills to pay.

However, if some banks are now crediting back into your checking with just a phone call now, that is fantastic! :) Maybe I’m jaded by Wells Fargo!

By: Mr. NtJS

Mr. NtJS — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:32:10 +0000

Great post, Kristy. We have experience here….

1. Debit disputes with BofA – These were quick, simple and painless. Not meant as an endorsement of BofA (we don’t bank there anymore), but these issues were typically handled over the phone in a matter of minutes. No paper work and the person on the phone certainly did not know us.

2. Debit Fraud with BofA – same as above – quick resolution over the phone. Shipped out the new card overnight, and even sent it to a different branch as we were leaving for vacation the next day. We had other issues with BofA, but on these topics, they were stellar.

3. Checking dispute with local bank – Not technically a debit issue, but debit pulls from checking. the bank cashed a check twice and didn’t bat an eye. Had to go down, fill out paperwork, and wait for them to sort it out – took a few days. Really, their lack of concern for their stupid mistake was a bigger issue than the paper work.

4. Debit Fraud with local bank – This was awesome, mostly because they stopped it before it even happened. Their system caught the suspicious transaction before it hit the account and they called us about it. Then mailed out a new card.