The ‘code’ is about cases where people have been scammed but a refund isn’t due.
In this case it was always the banks responsibility to refund. The bank can only not refund fraud if the customer has been grossly negligent, or they authorised the transactions themselves, neither of which apply here.
With Revolut and HSBC it probably came down to inexperienced customer service staff who saw that the pin was used - this can often be evidence the transaction was authorised (or the person was grossly negligent and gave away their pin or made it their birthday or something), it there are exceptions which the staff should have known about.
Not that mine is; but is this really a reason to not refund fraudulent activity? I could imagine if it were a heck of a lot of people fall foul of that.
yeah I am pretty sure it’s one of the examples you can use of gross negligence, along with sharing your pin with a family member, writing it on paper etc. Generally customers are expected to keep the pin secure
It could be. Generally when agreeing to a bank’s terms of services, there’s a part where you agree that you’ll take reasonable measures to keep your details secure. Coupled with the fact that most ‘choose your own PIN’ pages I’ve seen recently have warnings on the page to not choose a birthday, it’s possible a bank may reasonably decline to refund in such a circumstance.
Not to say this is right or wrong behaviour by the bank, simply that they would appear to have covered their backs if they decide to take such a course of action.
For a long time Barclays and HSBC both took a blanket position that if your pin was used it was their policy not to refund, until FOS had explained to them for the 1000th time why that wasn’t appropriate or in line guidance, as cases like the one in the article exist.
It’s still pretty established though that, if a pin is used most of the time a refund won’t be due and there’s far more responsibility the customer to explain how it was used, because 95% of the time a ‘fraudulent’ PIN transaction will be down to some sort of negligence on the customers part in keeping their pin secure.
There are a few other ways it can happen without being gross negligence other than exactly what’s in the article, it probably isn’t good to explain all of them, but it generally involves a fairly well organised crime.
Moral of the story though is, be really careful with your PIN!
From conversations with friends/family/workmates, I’ve learned that I’m unique in having a different PIN for my phone, each bank/credit card, and also for PIN-locked apps within the phone.
General comments are “I can’t be expected to remember more than one PIN” and “What’s the worst that can happen/It’ll never happen to me”
Even when people I’ve spoken to use more than one PIN, it’s two or three different PINs, max, so each one is getting use two or three times anyway. Or it’s really one PIN and they’ve just iterated it.
Password managers and apps with PIN reminders should help, but general public have yet to avail themselves of these tools, in my experience.
I like the environmental side of it, but its more expensive for less data than my current network so can’t see myself switching. Plus, they use Three which is terrible in my area.
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davidwalton
(Award Winning Hot Coral Analyst)
3509
It does look good, at a certain point. The point being the unlimited plan, where it outshines everyone else from what I can find.
But the ‘lower’ plans are certainly more expensive than what I can get through Sky Mobile. A 10GB plan with Honest is £17.50, whereas a 12GB plan with SkyM is £12
Factor in the 30% loyalty discount with Honest (which takes 6 years to achieve btw) and it makes a monthly cost of £12.25 for 10GB
But Sky does £12 for 12GB without any long-term loyalty, so there’s really not much in it other than the ‘green’ aspects.
It’s a compelling service with a very nice web presentation. But I’m staying with SkyM at the mo (£6 for 2GB on 3 phones = £18 per month total and unused data ‘piggy-banking’ - it is still insane value!)
