Consumer complaint received 2019-03-11
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
Hi, my name is XXXX XXXX XXXX and this is regarding my account ending in XXXX. My Account ID is XXXX ( provided by Barclays representative ). If you need any additional info to verify my ID, please kindly contact me as well.

This is regarding the fraud charges on my account. The charges, from what I can see so far, are as below : XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, - {$16.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$14.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$16.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$29.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$44.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$84.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$4.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$170.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$64.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$48.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$17.00} XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, {$17.00} I have  explained my case to Barclays before over the phone, including the last phone call onXX/XX/XXXXXX/XX/XXXX, at about XXXX pacific time. I have an accent and English is not my mother tongue, so I feel that there may have been a few misunderstandings along the way and I would like to use this chance to clarify on everything as well.

These transactions are NOT made by me, nor my wife, nor anyone authorized by me.

They are NOT made on my, or my wifes, taobao.com account either. If you would like, I can provide you with the username and password where you can login to our accounts to verify if we had made those purchases.

My wife has shopped at this merchant before. XXXX   is a very big company that is owned by XXXX, and is a very big company that does businesses in many areas, including online shopping, mobile wallet payment service, food delivery service, grocery delivery, etc.. They are somewhat like the XXXX equivalent of XXXX / XXXX   so it is not surprising for anyone to have shopped there before. And because of this, it is unfair to deny my claim simply because we had dealt with this merchant before. As an example for illustrative purposes, Ive shopped at XXXX XXXX XXXX, and XXXX before. Does this mean that I am going to be responsible for any fraudulent activity that occurs at any of the above merchants simply because Ive shopped there and dealt with them before? Would the same rule apply to you as well if one day someone made fraudulent charges on your card at a merchant that you have shopped at before?

Our contacts thus far to this merchant has not been of any use. After speaking to a Barclays representative last night ( XX/XX/XXXX ), I had attempted to contact the merchant again. My wife had tried contacting the merchant as well. This is a summary of my contacts with the merchant : Merchant has not been able to help much at all, if any.

Merchant is a huge company, so during my attempts to contact them, Ive been transferred around to several different departments who kept saying that another department is in charge, such as the international department should have been the one in charge of the account, and then someone else would say that we need to talk to the finance department, vice versa, etc., and everytime it took a lot of time and effort to reach the correct department that is actually able to or willing to help.

Merchant has refused to disclose / been unable to disclose any particulars of the orders, including the address where the orders were shipped to, email address associated with the orders, etc.

Merchant recommended that I contact my bank instead.

As such, these transactions are fraudulent. To reiterate, I did NOT authorize anyone to carry out these transactions, nor do I know who carried out these transactions, nor did I do these transactions. I have NOT received any benefits, directly or indirectly, from these transactions as well.

On Barclays website, it states that : With our fraud liability coverage, you aren't responsible for unauthorized purchases made with your card that you report to us. It doesn't matter if your card is lost, stolen or breached - online or offline - you're protected. Based on that statement, I ought to be protected, no? These purchases are unauthorized, and therefore according to your statement, I shouldnt be held responsible for these unauthorized transactions.

I hope that Barclays can investigate these transactions and come up with a fair conclusion. It is extremely unfair to put the burden of these transactions on me simply because my wife had shopped at this merchant in the past.

If you need to reach me, please kindly reach me at +XXXX, or through email at XXXX. I am ccurrently traveling overseas, so I am unable to receive any physical mail correspondence. Thank you once again.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation