My holiday money was put on ICE . . .
Ms P. R. writes: In October last year we went to Barcelona. I had topped up my ICE cashcard to €1,000 (about £900) and on arrival I withdrew €250. The next day my handbag was stolen and with it the card and the money. By the time we had been to the police and cancelled the card, thieves had drawn cash and spent the rest in a store. This was sorted out after five weeks and I was given a new card, credited with €750. In January we went to Tenerife where I drew €250 in cash, but then the card was declined. After spending £30 on phone calls, I found that the old stolen card had been used again, but ICE had debited it to my new card and we were left with almost no money.
ICE stands for International Currency Exchange. It works with the long-established Raphaels Bank to issue a prepaid Mastercard.
Travellers can deposit as much as they like on to the card which saves them from carrying all their holiday money in cash.
It also means that if the card is lost or stolen it cannot be used to run up huge bills as on a credit card. It can only be used up to the amount you deposited.
All this should mean that it is close to being safe as any piece of plastic in your purse can be. As you found in Barcelona, when your card was stolen and the thieves went on a speedy shopping spree, ICE issued you a new card and credited it with the €750 you had lost.
The company told me: ‘ In the unlikely event that one of our customers has funds stolen from their account we will refund them promptly. This is in line with the regulations in place which is what we have done in this instance.’
So what went wrong with your replacement card? It was not stolen, but it was drained of cash by whoever still had the original card.
ICE has investigated and found that a ‘forced transaction’ was made in December for € 447. A forced transaction is one that bypasses the normal authorisation process and sidesteps checks that would show whether the card was valid or had been reported stolen. It even avoids checks that would show whether the card has any money left on it.
This process can have a legitimate reason. For example, a car hire firm could use it when a customer returns a car that has been damaged.
But ICE has confirmed the forced transaction involving your card was a clear case of organised fraud, involving a merchant who pushed the spending through the system without checks.
ICE has found this was a sophisticated scheme used by an organised gang. It added: ‘We are working with the relevant parties and authorities to prevent further fraud on our prepaid card products.’
Meanwhile, ICE has refunded all your €447 losses from the second stage of the scam – and the company has added a further £100 as a gesture of goodwill.