2008 Urquhart Case

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Key Facts

Amount stolen £600
Number of Withdrawals 2
ATM Locations Barclays ATM, 74 Shepherds Bush Green, London.
Barclays ATM 137 North End Road, London
Issuing Bank HSBC
Acquiring Bank(s) Barclays
Card Type HSBC Business Bank Card (magnetic stripe)
Withdrawal time period Several hours (just before & after midnight)
Days from theft to discovery Unknown
Card theft involved No
Level of customer action Telphone enquiries
PIN Status Changed after issue, not recorded or written down
Outcome Resolved. Bank refunded customer with a day or so of complaint.

Case Details

  • Customer has HSBC business bank card (It is not a debit card or a cheque guarantee card, used solely for withdrawing from ATMs, depositing into machines situated inside HSBC branches and occasionally, printing statements (again within HSBC branches)
  • The card does not carry a chip (it is a magnetic stripe card)
  • Customer only uses the card at a small number of ATMs, all of them in highly visible locations. Customer is aware of the risk of ATM skimmers and the risk of over-the-shoulder PIN observation.
  • The card was in customer's possession at the time of the fraud.
  • On the day of the first fraudulent transaction, customer had used the card at an ATM close to the front door of an Asda store
  • Just before midnight, later on the same day, a withdrawal of £300 was made, according to the online statement. It was made from a Barclays ATM at 74 Shepherds Bush Green, London.
  • Around an hour later another withdrawal of 300.00 GBP was made at another branch of Barclays at 137 North End Road, London (Customer googled the info on the statement to come up with the full addresses).
  • As customer had made a genuine withdrawal of 30.00 GBP on the same day as the first fraudulent transaction, customer questioned HSBC as to how 300.00 GBP could have been taken on the same day. HSBC said that the card had a 500.00 GBP limit.
  • The money was refunded by HSBC the day after the fraudulent transactions were reported.
  • HSBC subsequently contacted customer to ask about "unusual" card usage shortly after customer reported the fraud. However customer notes that HSBC appeared not yet to have detected the unusual activity at the time he actually made the fraud report.
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