Eve’s and Wazir’s lil blog space

This is something that we hear often enough in Malaysia who is No. 1 Credit Card fraud capital of the world.  We even export our “talent” overseas, all in the spirit of Malaysia Boleh!

With all that, I kept on thinking that it won’t happen to me one-lah!  No way!  But unfortunately it did.

One fine day, an officer of the Bank called me asking if my mom who is my supplementary card holder had spent at Carrefour and Petronas.  I quickly called her up and was told that she didn’t make those transactions.

When she checked her wallet, a credit card by the same bank was there but it was not hers.  It bear another person’s name.  When I checked with the Bank, they told me that the card was reported lost sometime ago.  Without her reading spectacles on, there’s no way she could identify that the card does not belong to her.  So, with her new card, I am going to make some marking somewhere so that it is easily identifyable but not to the extend of getting it rejected by merchant.

Next question is, who should bear the cost?  The Bank can push the blame to the card holder for negligence and not checking the card before placing it in the wallet.  Then I heard of a recent case of a Citibank credit card holder.  When Citibank insisted that the customer pay the full amount of the purchase, she took the matter to court.  In order to protect the consumers, clause 13.2 in Bank Negara’s guideline to banks states:

“The cardholder’s maximum liability for unauthorised transactions as a consequence of a lost or stolen credit card shall be confined to a limit specified by the issuer of credit cards, which shall not exceed RM250 provided the cardholder has not acted fraudulently or has not failed to inform the issuer of credit cards as soon as reasonably practicable after having found that his credit card is lost or stolen.”

(Refer article : http://en.cap.org.my/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=5)

Citibank lost and I heard was fined RM250,000 for breaching the guideline.  The Bank had insisted that customer had signed the T&C that they will be liable for the full charge or something like that.  However, no T&C or any kind of agreement is valid if it is in breach of guidelines provided.

It is good to know your rights but it is a mess having to make statements at the police station.

So, please be careful with your credit cards.  You never know what is going to happen next.  But should it still happen to you, just remember this guideline.

* Note: citation on recent case with Citibank is only a hearsay.  I can’t find it online to verify.

While browsing in Wikipedia, I came across a picture of the Malaysian Scorpene class submarine, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman.  The image description given in French:

“Submarine Altantuya classe Scorpene durant ses essais à Lorient”

 which when translated (by Babel Fish) means:

“Submarine Altantuya classifies Scorpene during its tests in Lorient”

Check it out at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scorpene_malaisien_vue_de_trois_quart_arriere_2.jpg

Since when is Malaysia known as Altantuya … I can only wonder ;p