Dell taking 2 lots of money and Credit Card stopped for fraudulent activity

spookwoman

I ordered a Dell computer for my dad on my credit card, got the pc no problem there.
I went to the shops on Friday and was told by the cashier my card was denied. She called the merchant and they just said I needed to call my bank. In the mean time I was getting calls on mobile from bank fraud dept looking for my details and I thought it was a scam until I called them directly. Dell had placed 2 * €800+ on my card on 2 different days and the bank saw this as something dodgy. They stopped my card because they believed it was fraudulent activity.
I have had to cancel my card, borrow money as I dont carry cash and it's not easy to get to bank.
Dell called me today to say they put the order on my card but it was held until I got the machine and then they put the order through again to take the money. They say this is standard practice and 7 days later you get the money back.
This has now cost me money by having to call the banks fraud dept in england for an hour, call other companies that have standing orders, call dell.
I told the guy that they do not realize just how much trouble they have caused for me. His replay was he was just calling me about the account and that he would let his colleague know that I was making a complaint :mad:

Procrastastudy

Firstly - why buy a bloody Dell - there's a forum here for PCs that would have saved you a fortune. Well the puppy is dead now (they kill a puppy every-time you buy a machine from Dell - allegedly).

Anyway - This might be a shadow transaction - if it isn't and they have indeed charged you twice, I'd personally write a letter with proof of your charges and insist they be refunded - don't go nuts and start adding in a bazzillion euro for embarrassment etc - it will only make you look silly if you have to take it further. They've about a 60% margin on their machines so they can afford it!

If its not forthcoming I'd look at taking it to the bank and finally the Small claims court if they'll entertain such claims.

I have to admit it sounds like a Shadow Transaction - they held the money so it was available for charging and as its sitting there on a self in Dell it got dispatched very quickly and the money charged before the hold could drop off. You'll need to establish exactly what from your bank.

Zab

I don't see why you cancelled the card. It's pretty common for a purchase like that to be flagged by your bank's fraud department which will often end up with a temporary hold on your card until they verify with you.

It sucks if you had to pay for calls to England to sort this out, but if the bank has a base here they probably supply an Irish number you could have used.

spookwoman

Dell say it was a holding charge. Now I'm sure banks recognize holding charges and deal with them every day. My problem is the amount of hassle it has caused me the fact they put 2 transactions through and its going to take 7 days to get it sorted and credited. In this day and age with bank fraud etc they should be more ware.

spookwoman

Zab wrote: »

I don't see why you cancelled the card. It's pretty common for a purchase like that to be flagged by your bank's fraud department which will often end up with a temporary hold on your card until they verify with you.

It sucks if you had to pay for calls to England to sort this out, but if the bank has a base here they probably supply an Irish number you could have used.

I canceled my card on advice and piece of mind as it was done online. Also because 2 lots of money were taken. Have never heard of holding charges before when purchasing items.

Zab

spookwoman wrote: »

I canceled my card on advice and piece of mind as it was done online. Also because 2 lots of money were taken. Have never heard of holding charges before when purchasing items.

Surely they were both to Dell, though? That was terrible advice in my opinion.

foggy_lad

Sounds like fraud to me, dell agents operate from some of the dodgiest areas of the world for online crime and credit card frauds. There should only ever be one charge which is usually done by reserving the funds in your account until the order is competed then the funds are released to the retailer. In this case the funds were taken then taken again when the order was completed.

spookwoman

Zab wrote: »

Surely they were both to Dell, though? That was terrible advice in my opinion.

As Foggy_lad said it also sounded dodgy to me and it was done online. Bad advice no I trust my bank to protect my money before I trust a company who is trying to take the money.
You hear a lot these days of people which have had money taken without permission. Better to be paranoid i say

Zab

foggy_lad wrote: »

Sounds like fraud to me, dell agents operate from some of the dodgiest areas of the world for online crime and credit card frauds. There should only ever be one charge which is usually done by reserving the funds in your account until the order is competed then the funds are released to the retailer. In this case the funds were taken then taken again when the order was completed.

So, you think that somebody who works for Dell robbed the details and then put through another identical Dell order with a different delivery address?

spookwoman

Zab wrote: »

So, you think that somebody who works for Dell robbed the details and then put through another identical Dell order with a different delivery address?

Not making any comment on that. They say my account will be sorted by friday at the latest might even be sorted tomorrow sometime. Will keep a very close eye on things
What also makes me wonder is if I hadnt had the funds for 2 with drawls

Cabaal

spookwoman wrote: »

I canceled my card on advice and piece of mind as it was done online. Also because 2 lots of money were taken. Have never heard of holding charges before when purchasing items.

They are simply authorisations, they happen alright

Nonoperational

If it's a transaction for an identical amount then it would seem to me it's some error. No need to cancel the card in my opinion.

Procrastastudy

gpf101 wrote: »

If it's a transaction for an identical amount then it would seem to me it's some error. No need to cancel the card in my opinion.

To be fair if the bank said "cancel it" and the customer said no - who do you think would end up paying if it was fraud?

spookwoman

Just spoke with bank money was taken on the 2nd and another lot was tried to be removed on friday. Fridays amount is still pending and wouldn't go through unless i say so. Now have to wait for dell to get off their asses and refresh the account and cancel their side

Teagwee

A similar thing happened to me a few years ago when I ordered a Dell laptop. They put through the payment 10 times (I kid you not) and my bank rang me to check, luckily enough. The duplicates were all sorted within a week, but I was unable to buy anything with my card in the meantime.

Dell were totally unapologetic and, in fact, the laptop failed to arrive. They kept pushing back the delivery date until I got fed up and cancelled after 3 weeks beyond the ETA. Then followed a series of the most pathetic pleading phonecalls from an Indian call centre begging me to wait a bit longer for my order - they just couldn't tell me how much longer. Another 30 days went by before my payment was finally refunded. Dell - never ever again!

spookwoman

Tweeted Michael Dell that i was unhappy and he/them got dell care onto me via twitter couldnt get it though their heads that they had tried to get 2 payments and it was the bank that had stopped the last one. Ended in sorry our level of support tools cannot tell us why 2 lots of payment orders were put through. Asked them if an unauthorized payment request was put through as it was a week between them. No answer to that and they only mentioned the holding payment when i said it. Teagwee they dont realize just how much hassle and grief this causes the customer. They also dont care as long as they get paid. Bet they'd be onto a supplier like a flash if the were double charged.
Might get more answers on friday.

BuffyBot

Sounds like an authorisation (which holds the funds, but will drop off) and the actual transaction coming through. It happens.

It does sound like you've slightly over-reacted here. While I appreciate it can be unsettling, jumping to conclusions complicates things even more than is needed on occasions like these.

spookwoman

Dont think I have over reacted. What if that transaction had gone through and hadn't enough to pay bills because it was going to take 7 days to get a refund. The point is they tried to take a 2nd amount out that did not belong to them. What i want to know is how and why it happened.

The bank said the money was taken on the 2nd with the order. It was on Friday a 2nd amount was requested. Dell have also said that 2 requests went through and the 2nd is having to be canceled. They have admitted fault.

number66

Reminds me of start-up web-sites that where double charging customers and then refunding one of the charges, all so they could inflate their turnover figures to look good to investors. Is Dell in financial trouble?

Procrastastudy

number66 wrote: »

Reminds me of start-up web-sites that where double charging customers and then refunding one of the charges, all so they could inflate their turnover figures to look good to investors. Is Dell in financial trouble?

They're in 'have outsourced CS to India' trouble.

Xavi6

spookwoman wrote: »

Dont think I have over reacted.

To be honest you have. These things happen all the time yet your reaction is to jump to conclusions about being swindled.

Having said that, if the second amount was just an authorisation the bank shouldn't have cancelled you card straight up and caused even more panic about fraud. A simple hold on it until you rectified things with Dell would've saved everyone a lot of hassle.

spookwoman

Xavi6 wrote: »

To be honest you have. These things happen all the time yet your reaction is to jump to conclusions about being swindled.

Having said that, if the second amount was just an authorisation the bank shouldn't have cancelled you card straight up and caused even more panic about fraud. A simple hold on it until you rectified things with Dell would've saved everyone a lot of hassle.

Yes and people get swindled all the time. People have even had money stolen from their accounts by bank workers so why should I trust Dell.
The 2nd amount was not an authorization it was a 2nd request to take €800+ which in total was €1600+.
Dell have even said that there was 2 requests to the bank and cannot or will not explain why or how it happened.
As I said I canceled my card on recommendation and peace of mind. Its a debit credit card which means it is not separate to my account that i pay off once a month, it is my main bank account.
If some fecker is trying take something that does not belong to them without my permission of course I am going to do everything in my power to stop them and I have every right to be annoyed.

Zab

Nobody is saying you shouldn't be angry. However, mistakes happen and in this case you created extra hassle for youself by cancelling the card due to bad advice from the bank.

spookwoman

At around 9 am Friday a call on mobile claiming they were from the bank and asked for mum by name and were looking for bank card details. It was a uk number and a foreign lady that I could not call back, another came in later that i missed. When I tried to call one of the numbers back it went to some financial firm in waterford. There is a scam going around, they are claiming they are from such bank and looking for details, this scam was only happening the week before.

I didnt know how the bank had that number as it is not listed on the online banking. Also on the same phone a lot of strange scam texts have been coming in lately most from the UK. While on the phone to dell customer care and telling them what was happening after the card was canceled I got another one of these bank calls this time looking for me and it was automated and then another foreign lady looking for my bank details.
When I called the bank it was always someone with a uk accent that answered.
uk calls for details and the request for 2nd payment made me suspicious and it was that activity that made me cancel my card. Also it was a Friday nearly 6pm and I sure as hell was not going to sit on it till monday.

Call me paranoid but put all those things together would you not be suspicious. There are warnings all over the place about these scam calls and not to give out details. Better to be safe than sorry even if it causes a 2 day migraine.

But none of this would have happened if dell hadn't messed up in the first place. If they had reviewed the billing they would have seen they had already been paid a week previous.

spookwoman

Dell called this morning to say they only see one transaction and I will need to contact bank to get statement or doc that 2 attempts were made. "Dell do not take the money when you order online its automated" so some divine power put through the purchase transactions. Happy days New card, bank account clear no pending orders and no extra money taken out.
Cannot get doc as it has not been cleared from account so it looks like dell refreshed their account to clear their extra pending order and because of that they cannot see it on their side.
I asked if they can check transactions logs by number instead of name and got a waffle.
2 words sneaky feckers. Wont ever do business again with them, just went with them because of a good deal.

Calhoun

spookwoman wrote: »

Dell called this morning to say they only see one transaction and I will need to contact bank to get statement or doc that 2 attempts were made. "Dell do not take the money when you order online its automated" so some divine power put through the purchase transactions. Happy days New card, bank account clear no pending orders and no extra money taken out.
Cannot get doc as it has not been cleared from account so it looks like dell refreshed their account to clear their extra pending order and because of that they cannot see it on their side.
I asked if they can check transactions logs by number instead of name and got a waffle.
2 words sneaky feckers. Wont ever do business again with them, just went with them because of a good deal.

Honestly I think you might want to steer clear from placing orders online in future as the way this was handled made it worse than what actually happened.

You have stated they have admitted fault but then today you say that they actually didnt submit the order twice? so what actually happened and did you contact your bank? could the issue be on their end?

As you placed the order online you can return it within 7 days and get full refund and take you business elsewhere. If you felt they were out to defraud you i would consider it.

spookwoman

Calhoun wrote: »

You have stated they have admitted fault but then today you say that they actually didnt submit the order twice? so what actually happened and did you contact your bank? could the issue be on their end?
.

Yes they admitted fault but now that the account has been cleaned up by them they are now back tracking and saying there was only 1 transaction ever made. While my bank says on the 2nd they took money and on the 10th they tried to take a 2nd amount which is the one that dell said they would run the cleanup on and remove. They have now done that since monday evenings call to the bank and an email to customer care with dellcares saying there was 2 transactions and they couldn't understand why.

I'm not looking for money if anyone is wondering I'm just looking answers.

Calhoun

spookwoman wrote: »

Yes they admitted fault but now that the account has been cleaned up by them they are now back tracking and saying there was only 1 transaction ever made. While my bank says on the 2nd they took money and on the 10th they tried to take a 2nd amount which is the one that dell said they would run the cleanup on and remove. They have now done that since monday evenings call to the bank and an email to customer care with dellcares saying there was 2 transactions and they couldn't understand why.

I'm not looking for money if anyone is wondering I'm just looking answers.

I think what you are finding is with the commoditization of computer hardware what you are seeing is level of support is dropping in line with how cheap it is getting.

Whoever you are dealing with is a cabbage they should be able to tell you what has or hasnt happened.

As advised with distance purchasing you can return within 7 business days, so if you want to return and go elsewhere it might be worth looking into that.