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Not long ago I got an email, being an investor in Curve, about their CS improvements blah blah blah… Needless to say that those fabled improvements haven’t happened yet.
I started using Curve in the last few months as I wanted to push spend on my Avios Barclaycard. They have good cashback offers too, especially on everyday spend (TFL, Uber, Waitrose etc) but the problem was, at least for me, that pending transactions would be approved and there’s no way Curve can solve the problem. You have to call the underlying bank (Barclays) to get it sorted… it’s so painful that I stopped using the card altogether. I only get cash every week and that’s it.
I wish I had never invested in the product.
Having a nightmare time off it to with terrible support from curve.
On 2nd Jan, I received a flood of phone notifications showing transactions being
charged to my Curve debit card. When I realised what was happening I
immediately blocked the card. In the space of only 20 minutes,
there were multiple transactions, to multiple vendors and currencies
already charged totalling £19909.81Back and forth with support explaining basic things, they can’t even open screen shots properly.
Now curve support refusing to acknowledge something went wrong. In fact they are finding reasons why may I did something wrong! Saying it was authorised by biometrics or pin so it MUST be me!!
Then they said. Ok tell you what we will give you 50% back. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I think, mostly crying.
Ive raised with action fraud, 2 days ago complaint and waiting for a response. Then ombudsman then lawyer.
It’s nearly 20k! I would have to sell a kidney!
Ouch @Igadhia
Have you also contacted your underlying debit card company to explain the issue?
It’s very premature to be talking of Ombudsman or lawyer. This can be resolved and any money refunded this week assuming you have none of the culpability they claim.
As above, you need to get in touch with the underlying card provider to get the transactions suspended and investigated. You need to write both to Curve (for something this serious, write to the CEO and complaints) and the underlying card company confirming that you did not make any of the underlying transactions, that your card has remained in your possession at all times, that you have never shared the PIN with anyone and that your phone also remained in your position at all times so that no biometrics can have been. Obviously, each of these statements must be truthful.
The 50% offer is quite bizarre as these transactions are either fraudulent or they are not.
You should say to Curve that this offer (which sad to say is a typical fintech response notably from the big R) is fundamentally dishonest, attempting to protect their interests rather than the customer, thus breaching several FCA principles. Their statement that the transactions were approved by PIN or biometrics/ApplePay wouldn’t appear to stand scrutiny.
Insist on a response and full refund of the fraudulent transactions within 72 hours at the latest. You need to be really clear but not emotional or angry.
The other thing that makes card companies funny about quick resolution is that there are people making transactions like this and then pretending they were fraudulent. Three recently published FOS cases involving Amex where the Ombudsman decided, on the balance of probabilities, that the complainant had made the transactions. There’s rightly therefore less trust around as there are too many bad actors.
@Igadhia, the way Action Fraud works is that they gather any evidence relating to an offence then send it to the relevant police force to investigate, so it’s often a while before you hear anything, if at all. If, for example, the fraud originates abroad, it’s very, very difficult to detect. Even in the UK, most banks will ask for a court order to release any kind of information, and forces will only authorise the cost of this when large amounts of money are involved.
As @JDB says, the waters are muddied by increasing numbers of people making false reports of fraud, but the point about PINs and biometrics is very important because it’s unlikely that a real fraudster could access these unless you deliberately or carelessly shared them.
I also suspect some of these Curve and similar frauds are inside jobs and companies are to an extent prioritising their reputations over their customers.
I always keep my Curve and Revolut cards frozen unless I’m using them, it’s a bit of a pain having to remember every time you order an Uber or whatever, but I think it’s the best defence against Curve trying to fob you off like this!
My experience – very good service from Curve.
I had a fraudulent £120 transaction appear as a regular alert on my phone, and immediately locked the card, and submitted the relevant form.
Less than 24 hours later the charge was reversed, card cancelled, and a new one in the post. I received it two days later.
Faultless service in my experience, but appreciate YMMV!
But… perhaps it’s the more automated processes that only work well. 10 days ago tried to buy some SQ flights on the Curve card (from NZ, so in $NZ) to avoid the FX fee. My ‘daily limit’ was £500 short of the fare for four people, so I asked them to increase it. Got the usual “we’ll get back to you in two working days” line.
7 working days later, still no answer, despite repeated chasing, and have had to buy the tickets on Amex instead as I could see the options reducing every day. Cost me circa £500 extra in FX and credit card fees.
Boo Curve. Boo.
(Not Boo-urns)
My experience – very good service from Curve.
I had a fraudulent £120 transaction appear as a regular alert on my phone, and immediately locked the card, and submitted the relevant form.
Less than 24 hours later the charge was reversed, card cancelled, and a new one in the post. I received it two days later.
Faultless service in my experience, but appreciate YMMV!
May have spoke too soon. Two months later I have an email from Curve saying that the merchant has confirmed the name and billing address matches mine (no sh1t, how else would the transaction go through), so the transaction appears genuine. I now need to contact the merchant directly and then “provide evidence to contradict the merchants findings”. What, pray tell would said evidence look like if I’ve never heard of them?!
Let’s see how this plays out.
@phantomchickenz just wondering if you can challenge this on the underlying credit card? On the basis you don’t recognise the transaction there (the one from Curve). May not help – but might.
My experience – very good service from Curve.
I had a fraudulent £120 transaction appear as a regular alert on my phone, and immediately locked the card, and submitted the relevant form.
Less than 24 hours later the charge was reversed, card cancelled, and a new one in the post. I received it two days later.
Faultless service in my experience, but appreciate YMMV!
May have spoke too soon. Two months later I have an email from Curve saying that the merchant has confirmed the name and billing address matches mine (no sh1t, how else would the transaction go through), so the transaction appears genuine. I now need to contact the merchant directly and then “provide evidence to contradict the merchants findings”. What, pray tell would said evidence look like if I’ve never heard of them?!
Let’s see how this plays out.
Just wondering if you can challenge this on the underlying card (presumably credit card…). You’ve had a charge you don’t recognise (the one from Curve). May not help – but a thought.
@phantomchickenz – I don’t think challenging with the underlying card will help any more than challenging a PayPal payment. This needs to be addressed with Curve and their initial response is inappropriate.
First you need to be absolutely certain that this charge isn’t yours and not e.g. some recurring payment that hasn’t been cancelled or charge by a merchant that uses a different billing name.
If you are 100% certain this is a fraudulent charge, you need to be very firm in stating this with Curve, that you did not authorise any such charge and that the card has remained in your possession at all times. You could also write to the merchant behind the charge to challenge it.
Who is the merchant?
CS is definitely hit and miss. Took out £100 from ATM with curve and only received £80 (first time this has ever happened to me and don’t think it’s a curve issue). But still awaiting for curve to even respond (2 weeks+)
CS is definitely hit and miss. Took out £100 from ATM with curve and only received £80 (first time this has ever happened to me and don’t think it’s a curve issue). But still awaiting for curve to even respond (2 weeks+)
If you talk to the bank / merchant there and then they should be able to identify this.
My 1% cashback has not been tracking properly. Raised a month ago in chat and no response despite chasing last week. So have emailed the complaints team to see if they respond
Who is the merchant?
Thats important one, because if it’s online only delivery retailer – and your address matches then hard to argue.
There is a chance of retailer using different name, recurring transaction (yearly subscription) – another “accepted” person using your card – partner, a friend.. it may be worth reaching to retailer in such case.@Swiss Jim – I went into the branch connected to the ATM and they had no clue how to identify it. Told me to contact my provider…
I’m curious as to what could go wrong with an ATM to dispense £20 less. Maybe it wanted to give you two £10s but the £10 cassette was blocked somehow. In theory the discrepancy should be discovered when a count is performed – and it would be rare for the error to only happen to one user.
When Canada had just released its polymer banknotes, they often stuck to each other. I withdrew $200 from an ATM and got what appeared to be ten $20s, but when I counted there were actually twelve as the machine had registered two notes stuck together as one note, twice. I went into the bank and informed them. The next week the branch manager told me that no discrepancy had been found with the amount that had purportedly been dispensed (and unofficially said to keep quiet if it happened again). So several friends and family performed further withdrawals at staggered times, but only one person managed to get an extra $20.
@phantomchickenz – I don’t think challenging with the underlying card will help any more than challenging a PayPal payment. This needs to be addressed with Curve and their initial response is inappropriate.
First you need to be absolutely certain that this charge isn’t yours and not e.g. some recurring payment that hasn’t been cancelled or charge by a merchant that uses a different billing name.
If you are 100% certain this is a fraudulent charge, you need to be very firm in stating this with Curve, that you did not authorise any such charge and that the card has remained in your possession at all times. You could also write to the merchant behind the charge to challenge it.
Definitely not a recurring payment. The merchant seems to effectively be a spam enabler – they sell email addresses scraped from the web. Something I never have and never will use, but something a fraudster would probably find quite helpful.
I now have a dialogue started with the merchant and helpfully still have the cancelled Curve card (the metal one that can’t be destroyed), so I’ve given them some basic details (nothing that will further identify me) to help trace the transaction.
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