DEBIT CARD FRAUD

Hi,
I am a prepaid legal client but it is too late to call them right now but my situation is that I have a gal that has not worked for me since January 2007 and I received a statement in the mail from a local wholesale company that I have an account with but I have not purchased anything in several months so I called them to question the charges and they told me that this gal had come in an gave them my account # and told them that she was an authorized user on the account, purchased what she needed, had it charged to my debit card on file, what recourse do I have. I do have the original receipt from them where she signed the card receipt. Please help. I am still trying to recover money that she fraudulently took from the company while she was employed.
Lee Ann
 
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Lee Ann,

Any fraudulent act has legal repercussions. If a case can be made against her she might be facing charges. Most of the time people will pay up rather than face a court appearance. For whatever reason, we often ignore the offense and move on.

Debit card fraud is similar to writing bad checks. Banks try to protect account holders against unauthorized “withdrawals.” If you can demonstrate to the bank’s satisfaction that the charges against your debit account were not authorized, they might absorb the loss and take the legal action that you would find costly and time consuming. It can’t hurt to approach a bank officer with whatever documentation you have and ask them to consider your problem. The wholesaler might also have been lax about procedure. 

I prefer credit card usage in most situations because you can deny an unauthorized charge and pass the “buck” to the credit card company. It cannot hurt to act in a timely manner in all cases of suspected fraud.

Everybody’s Uncle