Sort of a double purpose thread - wondering if anyone has ever experienced anything like the below before, and also a warning!
So - I went for a lovely 10 day trip around the Iceland ring road last week, used my curve card, charging to my Barclay Card for pretty much every transaction (except some of the fuel pumps which would only accept a visa debit).
Day of the flight home I was bored so decided to have a look through my card statements - jumped onto my curve account and saw a transaction for £5,267.02 on 15/04 at a grocery store, panic'd that someone had cloned/nicked my card - but once I saw the ISK (871900) value, I remembered the till showing that number, albeit 100x less - 8719, and the transaction was at the time I was in the shop.
Looked on my Barclay card account, on 15/04, and there was only a transaction for £52.67, however on the 17/04 there was a transaction for £5,214.34 ie the sum of these two was the total charged to my curve card (not sure why the dates didn't match) - so suspected it wasn't a merchant thing, but curve. Emailed the merchant who were very helpful, and responded showing the till receipt from my transaction (for, as I remembered 8719ISK) at the exact time that the 100x amount appeared on my curve account. They also replied with a bit of info 'Thank you for contacting. We were informed that this is a display error in banks as a result of a error in an update with the credit card companies here in Iceland, transactions are correct with us. Please contact your bank directly to correct this.'
So, I tried to call curve (not possible - they don't have a fraud number, you can only fill in a form, which I did), so decided to call Barclays, suspected they wouldn't be able to help as you lose section 75 protection with Curve (which is why I only every use it for small purchases/tax bill!!), which they confirmed and told me to get in touch with curve.
Anyway, I haven't had anything back from Curve, but I got an automated email on 19/04 saying that 871900ISK (£5190.16 - so lost out on the exchange rate - but thats a later argument) would be refunded my barclaycard. So, £5,243.61 has returned to my curve card, but so far only £23.41 has re-appeared on my Barclaycard - but the same of those two amounts is the same as the total taken!
I didn't take any notice of it at the time, but I remember at one campsite there was an American lad on the phone to someone, saying he'd been charged £14k for a horse ride, and £350 for 2x granola bars! So I'm obviously not the only one.
Really not sure what is going on, and I'm kind of stuck until Curve get back to me.
Will definitely be rethinking when/if at all I used my Curve card now - as their support absolutely stinks, and I do think this has something to do with their systems.
So, has anyone had something similar happen, or any suggestions of next best steps - and if you do use a curve card, be warned they are incredibly difficult to get hold of! Also - separate to the above issue, if you get a refund for something, and it doesn't exactly match the original transaction, they will not refund it to your card, they will give it to you as curve cash. I had this with our deposit on the campervan (EUR2300), which ended back as curve cash. Curve cash isn't protected, and expires after 3 or 6 months - and the only way to extract it, is to send a paypal gift to someone you trust using your curve card!
So - I went for a lovely 10 day trip around the Iceland ring road last week, used my curve card, charging to my Barclay Card for pretty much every transaction (except some of the fuel pumps which would only accept a visa debit).
Day of the flight home I was bored so decided to have a look through my card statements - jumped onto my curve account and saw a transaction for £5,267.02 on 15/04 at a grocery store, panic'd that someone had cloned/nicked my card - but once I saw the ISK (871900) value, I remembered the till showing that number, albeit 100x less - 8719, and the transaction was at the time I was in the shop.
Looked on my Barclay card account, on 15/04, and there was only a transaction for £52.67, however on the 17/04 there was a transaction for £5,214.34 ie the sum of these two was the total charged to my curve card (not sure why the dates didn't match) - so suspected it wasn't a merchant thing, but curve. Emailed the merchant who were very helpful, and responded showing the till receipt from my transaction (for, as I remembered 8719ISK) at the exact time that the 100x amount appeared on my curve account. They also replied with a bit of info 'Thank you for contacting. We were informed that this is a display error in banks as a result of a error in an update with the credit card companies here in Iceland, transactions are correct with us. Please contact your bank directly to correct this.'
So, I tried to call curve (not possible - they don't have a fraud number, you can only fill in a form, which I did), so decided to call Barclays, suspected they wouldn't be able to help as you lose section 75 protection with Curve (which is why I only every use it for small purchases/tax bill!!), which they confirmed and told me to get in touch with curve.
Anyway, I haven't had anything back from Curve, but I got an automated email on 19/04 saying that 871900ISK (£5190.16 - so lost out on the exchange rate - but thats a later argument) would be refunded my barclaycard. So, £5,243.61 has returned to my curve card, but so far only £23.41 has re-appeared on my Barclaycard - but the same of those two amounts is the same as the total taken!
I didn't take any notice of it at the time, but I remember at one campsite there was an American lad on the phone to someone, saying he'd been charged £14k for a horse ride, and £350 for 2x granola bars! So I'm obviously not the only one.
Really not sure what is going on, and I'm kind of stuck until Curve get back to me.
Will definitely be rethinking when/if at all I used my Curve card now - as their support absolutely stinks, and I do think this has something to do with their systems.
So, has anyone had something similar happen, or any suggestions of next best steps - and if you do use a curve card, be warned they are incredibly difficult to get hold of! Also - separate to the above issue, if you get a refund for something, and it doesn't exactly match the original transaction, they will not refund it to your card, they will give it to you as curve cash. I had this with our deposit on the campervan (EUR2300), which ended back as curve cash. Curve cash isn't protected, and expires after 3 or 6 months - and the only way to extract it, is to send a paypal gift to someone you trust using your curve card!