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Comment by entity345 | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps worth mentioning, since it's nowhere in the article, that the first thing to do is not to spend hours on the phone with Deliveroo (or whoever else) but to call your bank to report the transactions as fraudulent and to block your card.

That will probably get you a refund quicker (the transactions will likely be held until clarified) and will stop any further fraud.

As for Deliveroo's support team... Not very good in my experience, but that's common. Their competitors are no better.

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This is basically the sole "feature" of credit cards I value. Any time I'm buying something from somewhere that might act poorly, I use a credit card for the free leverage I have in a disagreement.

Had an old phones screen repaired at a store inside a Walmart. They fixed it but half the screen had no touch capability. They were highly resistant to doing anything about it until I said I would just do a charge back. Tone instantly changed.

I've started using privacy.com after I saw a post here on HN about it. It's pretty nice. Basically you link up your bank account and they create debit cards for any online vendors you use, and you can set limits, destroy cards etc. I usually put monthly / transactional limits. Like with Uber Eats I know I only spend x amount, if anybody tried to use my Uber Eats card for 100 USD it would decline it. But also it locks itself to the vendor you choose, so it can't be used elsewhere.

I've been using this feature with my Citi CC for 10+ years. And with Citi, I don't need to give my CC to a 3rd party.

Same with BoA MC's ShopSafe feature.

ShopSafe works with BoA Visa cards too.

Never tried that instead, might just try it, but I got have other banks that might not support this at all (Credit Union). That's where privacy.com works best for me.

Some credit card companies offer virtual credit cards as a service as well!

Disclaimer: I work for one of those companies, but not on that product.

I loved this feature when I had Amex. The unique number-vendor pairing makes it easier to track down the vendor that spilled the beans to the charge defrauder. I was thrilled when capone started offering a similar service but its offering requires a browser addon with a backend anal about matching domain names to merchant names and sometimes rejecting valid purchases (I'm looking at you Dell factory refurb outlet).

That's an interesting idea. But I find a far easier solution is to turn on notifications. I get an email on my phone within a minute of every transaction. It's really nice having that feedback loop.

It doesn't save the PITA that is getting your card stolen, though. With a virtual CC you don't have to do anything except close that card out (which you can on Citi's website, which is the version of this I use).

I haven't found the occasional card replacement to be a pain, but I have two or more credit cards at any time.

It's not just being without, is updating all other services that are tied to your card.

Now I personally don't let third parties store my cards, but it's quite common in this day and age of saas everything

Oh, that's true. I guess I just don't have that many 3rd party services regularly billing my credit card without prompting for a specific one to bill. I've only had to replace two credit cards over about 10 years, though.

I have those on too! I saw the suggestion here, so I get: app notifications and emails. I also get notified if my balance gets too low. I used to want all that off, but email is a reasonable "paper trail" to know I'm not going crazy if I see an odd notification.

> I've started using privacy.com

Which is US only. Is there anything like it for the UK?

UK banks are already very good about refunding fraudulent transactions and associated fees:

https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/unauthorised-payments-accou...

"In most cases the bank must refund the payment without undue delay and by the end of the business day following the day on which it became aware of the problem, unless it has reasonable grounds for suspecting that you have acted fraudulently."

"When your bank refunds an unauthorised payment it must also refund any charges and interest you have paid because of the unauthorised transaction."

UK banks are already very good about refunding fraudulent transactions and associated fees

U.S. banks, as well. Twice Citi has refunded me within minutes. Chase within hours. It seems the policy is "give the customer the money, and we'll sort it out later."

The point is to not have to need to dispute a charge.

I would be very careful on this one.

Some providers are interestingly stubborn when it comes to charge backs and can hold on to the (fraudulent) vendors side even if you're clearly right.

Monzo in the UK is a prime example for that. An internet vendor charged me more than he should and refused to void the transaction (basically text-book fraud) and I filled for a charge back with monzo. I was extremely confident that it wouldn't take much however monzo customer service resisted to help.

The monetary value wasn't much however in the end I perfectly understood that this "protection" does not exist on the credit card issuer/bank side of things.

Be careful.

You didn’t file for a chargeback with Monzo, because they don’t offer credit cards. There’s less protection generally with debit cards.

Generally guidance is that you are entitled to a refund from the bank only if you did not authorise a particular transaction.

Chargeback also apply to debit cards.

It's just that credit cards must offer chargebacks by law.

The laws around credit cards are much stricter, in the UK it is much safer to use your credit card online and for day to day purchases (with pay in full every month so no interest charges).

Does it matter? The simple reason they are there is to protect my interests. If they can't do it for a few quid, how can they do it for larger sums of money?

The Moral of the Story: Money institutes may not cover you like you think they will.

I've learned my lesson.

Again, be -very- careful.

Money institutes may not cover you like you think they will.

Not if you didn't read your debit card agreement, no. Nothing you've stated wouldn't be clearly spelled out in the agreements I've seen for debit cards. I mean, I can see how this happens: looks like a credit card, must have the same protections as what people online say about credit cards, right? Nope.

> If they can't do it for a few quid, how can they do it for larger sums of money?

If I remember correctly, debit card protections don't exist below £100, so they literally can't do it for a few quid, but they can for larger sums of money.

This isn't an example of Monzo being terrible, this is an example of debit cards being terrible.

Debit cards in almost all cases have less protections that are clearly stated.

Monzo doesn't provide credit cards, only debit cards.

Banks have a vested interest to work with you for purchases made on credit because it's their money. Debit purchases have no such leverage and thus have lower protections.

If it costs more than £100, use a credit card in the UK as the CC company is jointly liable for any issues, even faulty goods.

One could open a MONZO account(Which is completely online and can be opened in a day).(https://monzo.com/)

You would get your debit card within a week max. You can transfer limited amount from your original bank account to Monzo account and even on top of that you can set some restrictions on how much amount can be withdrawn and there are some special features like POTS which are very useful.

I am not saying this is the best, but even if someone steals your monzo card details, you can reqeust for a new one and your original bank card details are still safe.

Note: All this works, only if you don't use a credit card.

The instant transaction alerts let you put a freeze on the account in a matter of seconds, so that's nice. I actually use my monzo account so putting low usage limits isn't practical.

Edit: although I guess they'd just do it in the middle of the night so doesn't really help.

Not sure about multiple cards, but Revolut give you a virtual debit card you can turn off and on, put restriction on, etc.

Revolut also have disposable cards that are valid for only one transaction.

Many banks offer this service without any third party. I don't generally see it advertised a lot, I assume because it's confusing to people who have no interest in it, but you can look up something like "virtual credit card" or "temporary credit card number" and probably find a bank offering it.

The very crude answer is to get a prepaid card and load it with enough to cover each purchase, then toss it as soon as it gets misused. Which works, but doesn't sound worth the hassle unless you seriously expect a bad outcome.

Yes I think so. I save with a credit union (just because, it is local and they do turn around with the money and give small loans to people which banks would not). They offer a prepaid debit card which I do not have but it is provided by 'The Change Account'

    https://www.thechangeaccount.com/

You can use Curve https://www.curve.app/

While Curve is indeed an excellent service, transactions made through it are not covered under section 75. See here: https://support.imaginecurve.com/hc/en-gb/articles/213620489...

A related tip, given to me by a Capital One rep when my card was compromised: get a second card (which has a different number) that you use just for automatic payments. Then when your “regular” card is compromised by a restaurant, skimmer, or shady online vendor, you don’t have to notify your autopay accounts, since your autopay card is unaffected.

SEPA offers chargebacks on debit charges as well, same effect if you use it (and I prefer it over a CC).

As a matter of principle, I would rather just do the chargeback (and get it really fixed somewhere else) than use it as leverage to negotiate for what I want on the spot.

If a company is prepared to stiff me like that, the convenience of having it fixed right away is not worth the concession of letting them have my money when all is said and done. Is that just me?

This is also the reason why creditcards are so ridiculously expensive.

But then is there literally any alternative payment method in the US that does not involve a creditcard? It seems like the US banking system has just not invented anything in the last 30 years. Its not rocket science: money from my bank account to Deliveroo's bank account in (near) real time.

This is a peculiarly US phenomenon. Much of the UK, EU, Aus etc are much more willing to adopt new payment technology. (Can't speak for the non English speaking world but obviously China is way ahead)

Surprisingly the US is much harder to convince. Ask people under 30yo in Aus or the UK when they last wrote a cheque, and the answer "what's a cheque?" is likely the response. Signing for a payment, magstripe, even using a PIN is mostly a distant memory.

Yeah what is a cheque? ;)

I can go weeks without my wallet now, Samsung Pay on my phone works just about everywhere in Australia, and it's great. Banking app even lets me generate a code to get cardless cash from ATMs, should I need notes.

For transactions bigger than ~AUD100 I do have to enter my pin but that's a minor inconvenience.

> Ask people under 30yo in Aus or the UK when they last wrote a cheque, and the answer "what's a cheque?"

It's what train companies in the UK send you 3 weeks after you fill a compensation for delay claim...

  > This is basically the sole "feature" of credit cards I value. Any time I'm buying something from 
  > somewhere that might act poorly, I use a credit card for the free leverage I have in a disagreement.

But without a credit card, they wouldn't even have been able to get your money without authorisation. I don't see how something like this would have been possible with a system that requires explicit authorisation per payment.

> But without a credit card, they wouldn't even have been able to get your money without authorisation. I don't see how something like this would have been possible with a system that requires explicit authorisation per payment.

I don't understands your point. Are you saying the ideal scenario would be to fill the cards information each time? The fact that it's a credit card doesn't change that it was prefilled, a debit card or wire transfer is the same. Credit or not, if it's already there, the one that access your account can use it.

With a credit card though, you can do a chargeback, which not only give you your money back, also add a direct cost (and a steep one from what I understood) to the merchant that made the transaction. As far as I know you couldn't do the same with a debit card.

What I mean is: with a credit card, you submit the information necessary to make the payment, to the merchant you're buying from. They could store that information and use it to make payments I never authorised, which is bad. On the Web, some sites have fortunately delegated that responsibility to a payment provider, but the payment provider is still not my own bank.

When I pay with my bank card with an internet payment through my bank, the authorisation is handled by me and my own bank, and nobody else. Nobody else can ever make that kind of payment without access to my password and my 2FA system. That's how it should work.

A few years ago, I made the mistake of buying some furniture using my debit card instead of credit card (about £1k).

Between the payment and the delivery the company went bust.

I though I was out of the money, but after a brief search I found out that, although there is no legal requirement to do so, VISA in the UK offers (or at least used to) the same chargeback facility to debit cards as for CCs. I visited my bank branch which gave me a phone number to contact, sent in a bunch of paperwork and after about 2 weeks I got my money back. I was very pleased as you can expect.

They could require the CVV when delivering to a new address - it's only three digits. But we're talking about a company that doesn't even refund obviously fraudulent transactions, so never mind.

With a credit card, (at least in the UK) you can cancel a transaction post final authorization.

In this scenario, the bank is jointly responsible for the transaction, and should refund you if the transaction isn't completed satisfactorily

Little confused as to why you chose their comment as the place to mention this downside.

Their story is about a situation where they gave explicit authorisation. They intentionally paid.

That's true. Being able to undo an authorised payment if the other party doesn't fulfil their end of the bargain is absolutely an advantage over other forms of payment.

In the Deliveroo case, however, it's the inherent insecurity of credit cards that made that problem possible in the first place. In light of that, the ubiquity of credit cards for online payments where data is so easily copied and leaked, never ceases to puzzle me.

all repair shops inside Walmarts are either Cellairis or iFix&Repair franchises. A quick call to parent company would have resolved it too.

This doesn't work in Germany, for example. If you charge back, they'll just put you into a central register (called Schufa) that will basically make it impossible for you to get a credit or even to rent an apartment.

No, disputed charges must not be reported to any credit register, Schufa or other. Only undisputed charges or court-certified decisions can be entered into a credit register. Even the repeated threat of reporting the charge to the credit register is illegal in many cases [1].

[1] https://www.wbs-law.de/datenschutz/unternehmen-darf-nicht-mi...

It's not a charge back in that sense when you report fraud or card theft.

And I suppose that the effect you describe results from abusive requests from charge backs. I doubt you will be refused a mortgaged because you were a victim of theft in the past...

> I doubt you will be refused a mortgaged because you were a victim of theft in the past...

Don't be so certain about this. The credit reporting agencies are evil, nasty blackboxes and it is not transparent how your score is influenced, even by fraudulent stuff.

While I hate the Schufa with a passion, it is not as clear-cut and automated as you make it seem. Before anyone can do shit with your Schufa score (or the other smaller credit reporting agencies arvato infoscore and Creditreform), they have to formally remind you of the debt that you have due to the charge-back before, and you can always contest fraudulent entries at the credit reporting agencies.

Additionally, you can and should file a police report for fraud when hit with such a scheme, it makes dealing with your card-issuing bank and the CRAs so much easier.

Can confirm that the police fraud report helps grease the gears (in the UK, this is done through Action Fraud).

The bank went from "we won't help you" to "oh, we'll fix that" about as soon as I told them I had a crime reference number...

I guess this has something to do with the penalties for making a false police report being much higher (in criminal law terms) than lying to a bank.

Charge back for a credit card? That's the first time I hear of this. Do you have citations for this?

Contesting a charge is a primary feature of credit cards — at least in the US. There’s a prominent link when I login to my credit card account allowing me to contest any charge, and a litany of reasons which you can then select from, ranging from “I don’t recognize / didn’t make this charge” to “Item was not delivered”, “Item was returned”, etc.

I've been imprecise, sorry. What I meant: how lead chargebacks to a credit card to a negative Schufa entry? I've never heard of this.

It's the one saving grace for using something so insecure for payments. At least the credit card company and/or merchant share that risk.

The CC offloads all of the risk + a fine to the merchant, they assume none of it.

Just so you know - charbegacks are reported to credit burreaus. Sometime they will show on your report for few months sometimes they don’t. Just letting you know if you ever be wondering why you have good credit score but bank doesnt approve your loan or doesnt want to extend your credit.

I’ve never had a credit card of mine report a chargeback, and if they ever did I would cancel the card immediately.

Mostly chargebacks are for actual fraudulent use of the card, and the process also includes getting a new card number.

Lately, most chargebacks I’ve done have actually been issued by the card itself after they detected suspicious activity and sent me a text alert asking about specific charges.

In one case, it was a debit card which I had received in the mail, activated, and never used and had never left the house. That one was particularly bizarre and I let them know something was very wrong there.

Credit cards do not report, merchants banks do directly With credit bureaus. from there they decide if certain card holder triggered too many they put it on.

Oh boy don't you love being downvoted when you give people a genuine good-faith advice. I miss HackerNews from 5 years ago...

Google this: "Account information disputed by consumer, meets FCRA requirements" and you will learn more.

That was my first thought too. Yes, I'd contact Deliveroo, but also my bank. If I didn't get a refund (some people waited months?), I'd sue them in a small claims court if the amount is low enough for small claims and if its not, I'd at least talk to a legal adviser. Waiting on Deliveroo for months after being defrauded thousands of pounds is crazy.

Apparently you have waaay more time than I do to sue people in small claims court. Charge back via calling up my CC company is much easier and quicker.

At least where I am, a small claims claim is a matter of filling out a form and paying the fee. I may be contacted for more information, but don't need to otherwise do anything unless I'm unsatisfied with the outcome, in which case the appeals process goes through a proper court.

Besides, I said that I'd only do this if I didn't get a refund through Deliveroo/bank/CC chargeback. I certainly wouldn't start with small claims court.

A demand letter is often enough and is a good step before small claims. “Fix my problem in ten days or get sued in small claims court", sent via certified mail to their designated agent for legal service in your jurisdiction, can often solve your problem.

Good suggestion. There's definitely a series of steps to go through before any time consuming and expensive lawyering up is needed.

Small claims court often does not require a lawyer. But yeah, the general process of "document things and escalate using said documentation to people whose job it is to make sure expensive lawsuits and regulatory actions don't happen" is an excellent choice.

Oh, I know, I said that in my other comment: where I am, it requires little more than filling out the claim form and paying the fee (and giving them more info if requested). Its only if you want to appeal that you may need a lawyer, or if you want to sue in a normal court. I just meant that there’s a bunch of steps you can do, including small claims, before needing a lawyer.

Small claims hearings are held in county courts.

That is the best way, go to the bank.

It is mentioned in passing in the article itself.

> Of the roughly 40 people I spoke to, not a single one had been refunded by the delivery service; those who did get their money back had got it from their bank.

I agree this is evidence. We know at least Deliveroo don't deal with fraud promptly or take it particularly seriously and thats bad enough even if they do eventually get around to it.

In my own experience, UberEats support team is stellar - I have had many many many issues due to couriers or the restaurant (wrong order, order got delivered completely ruined, order was cold, order was missing something, ...) and never once was I left in a bad situation.

I have almost always had a full refund (otherwise just partial for what was wrong/damaged) but what I really LOVED was how transparent they are throughout the process.

They message you when your concerns resulted in a ticket opening, when someone picks up your support ticket, when they are working on a resolution, and then when they found a resolution for your issue.

It's very seamless as well - I was experiencing issues on their web platform, DM'd support on Twitter, received info by email and on the UberEat app and at not time was there inconsistencies.

If it wasn't for the quality of their support team - I would have stopped using UberEats a long time ago.

Deleted my UberEats account when they told me that they could not offer any compensation for not delivering what I had ordered.

Getting a refund on what you ordered but did not receive is not compensation, it's what they must do.

>In my own experience, UberEats support team is stellar - I have had many many many issues due to couriers or the restaurant (wrong order, order got delivered completely ruined, order was cold, order was missing something, ...)

So, they have good customer support, but suck at the basic function of the business? And you keep using them?

Problem is most vendors will then block you from ever using their service again. Might not be such a big bummer, after all they're helping people steal your money. But here it was through Apple Pay, so it may have bigger ramifications to block the card.

I don't see a problem by being blocked from a service I would never use again anyways.

Plus the following dialogue: what was your name?...I am reporting you to xyz state attorney general's consumer fraud division is incredibly effective.

I've got to ask, when have you _EVER_ said this and had it actually result in what you wanted?

I worked in call centers for years and we laughed at people like you for a whole multitude of reasons.

The main reason being once you say this I'm no longer obligated to help you. Since you've decided to make this a legal situation instead of a customer service one you'll now need to talk to our team of lawyers that are on retainer. Anytime you call or email you'll get auto routed to our legal department forever who will go out of their way to not help you.

The reality is that people make legal threats dont actually follow through because they aren't people that understand the law or how it works, if they did they'd be taking actual legal action against us, not making idle threats to people making $19 dollars an hour.

Legal threats work for me about half the time, but I threaten small claims court only after getting escalated to a manager while collecting as much info as possible (it also helps if you're in a one party consent state and can play back parts of the phone call to the manager). It works for big companies better than small ones but it does take a little longer for the escalation to go through the legal department and I haven't really bothered trying it for small disputes (anything under a few hundred dollars). The few times I have followed through on the threat resulted in a settlement with one local business and default judgement against two big companies now.

I have used it 3 times or so and it was effective. The thing is I am not threatening to sue personally. I am threatening to refer the issue to the government. I personally had no intention or interest in pursuing legal options, but maybe the AG would. In one egregious case where the situation was resolved I still informed that office if the attempted fraud.

Again I'm not threatening to bring legal action. I'm just letting the 800 lb gorilla know about the situation and they perhaps might want to do something.

> Problem is most vendors will then block you from ever using their service again.

Who is "most vendors" exactly?

They may have been embellishing that claim; however, I think what they were getting at is that in some situations using the chargeback mechanism can have wider repercussions. For example: if you are "ripped off" through Steam on a particular purchase and use a chargeback, they may shut down your account. In that case, you would lose access to all of your games purchased through Steam. Similarly, if you use a chargeback with a Google Play Store purchase you may lose access to your entire Google Account.

Ah so not "most vendors" would ban you for reporting fraud to your bank, then.

What are you trying to achieve here?

Calling out blanket claims...

Thanks for the downvotes.

An example: Uber drivers requesting fake cleaning fee was recently discussed here on HN. Uber refuse to handle it properly, so people solve it by doing chargebacks only to find themselves blocked from the service.

Also heard it with lots of other vendors, but won't name without having something more substantial to back it up with.

Again, being blocked from a service that is screwing with you don't seem that bad.

I would never touch a company again that did that to me anyway.

It kinda depends on the service, though.

If I have a shitty customer service interaction with an Amazon rep, I might have to weigh the chargeback versus the value of my Kindle library, my AWS instances suddenly going dark, etc.

In the case of Uber, I might find myself severely restricted in transit options in an unfamiliar city.

It seems to be part of the "Distrupt!" business model. The "customer" "service" team is basically disaster mitigation, probably taught to screw with the customers. Like AirBnB, $2000 worth of damage to your apartment? They'll delay for a few days and offer you $200 if you agree to an NDA. Or that guy whose dog died after being walked by someone who used someone's account an dog-walking-service...

> offer you $200

If you're lucky. Otherwise they'll offer you "credit".

I’ve seen Uber respond to a chargeback by leaving the account active but disallowing all payment methods. With most companies I’d expect it was a customer support mistake rather than vindictiveness, but with Uber it’s hard to be sure.

Please note that when you do this in a dispute, they are probably going to block you from using their service in the future.

I've never heard of this happening but why would you want to keep using them anyway?

As someone else mentioned.. if you do this with Steam, you could get blocked from accessing all your past purchases. If you did this with your ISP, you may not have other high-speed ISPs to choose from.

And here is the irony.

Money-as-a-service (banks) give you the power to do this. But dependence on anything-else-as-a-service gives the provider power to make you think twice.

To add my anecdata, I had an excellent experience with Deliveroo's support team just before Christmas. Some pizzas arrived damaged. They offered to send exactly the same order again.

Definitely worthwhile, I think a huge amount of people in the UK use Debit cards with Deliveroo and other services so no money will come back off these.

The word you should use to the merchant is chargeback. They should sit-up straight at that word, if not, just goto your credit card company.

use that too often and you might be blackballed by the service. I know, but life is long.

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