Latifah Al-Hazza loves to travel and has been doing so internationally for years.
Normally her trips go off without a hitch, but she had some trouble when she was in the Middle East earlier in the year.
After a routine check of her bank account, Al-Hazza says she saw a charge for $228.67 from a rental car company based in the Emirates.
“I knew that I didn't rent a car in the Emirates because I actually been in Kuwait during the time of the transaction,” she tells me.
Al-Hazza says she was visiting family in Kuwait when she noticed the charge had appear on her statement, so she reached out to her bank, Chase, to report the charge.
She says she provided bank statements, passport stamps, and a conversation with the rental car company telling her they had no record of her charge.
Al-Hazza says Chase still denied the dispute.
“They claim it was a tap transaction and whenever it's a tap transaction, they claim that someone had to have been there in person to do it. So, they won't remove charge,” she tells me.
I wanted to get a better understanding about wireless payments, so I reached out to Julie Fergerson, the CEO of the Merchant Risk Council.
“The bank has different fraud protection rules that they use depending on what type of transaction it was,” she says. “You can tell if it’s ecommerce 3D secure transaction, you can tell if it's tap-to-pay in person, you can tell if it's tap-to-pay online, like through Safari with an Apple Pay. There are all different indicators in that message authorization that gets sent to the bank. So, everybody's on the same page about what kind of transaction it is.”
The Merchant Risk Council is a nonprofit, in part, that focuses on preventing fraud.
I asked her why it's so hard to dispute a contactless payment charge. She says because the technology is very secure.
“There are so many easier ways to commit fraud. So, very rarely do we actually see fraud in the tap to pay channel. We always say that the fraudsters like to do the least path of resistance,” Fergerson says.
However, if it does happen to someone, like Al-Hazza alleges, Fergerson says you’re going to have to take more steps rather than just saying it was fraud.
She says start by filing a police report because you'll have more rights as a consumer.
"You can get your credit reports for free; you can put a fraud alert on your credit report, or you can actually even put a freeze on your credit report at no cost once you've become a victim,” Fergerson says.
The Merchant Risk Council says reports of this type of fraud is increasing, which is normal in an economic downturn, and as things get tighter and tighter, we're going to see more fraud.
Ted Rossman, Bankrate Senior Industry Analyst, weighs in saying that people need to check their accounts more often, “it’s definitely a really good reminder for everybody to comb through those statements. Maybe even set alerts on your phone."
After getting back into the states, Al-Hazza called the Problem Solvers, and I contacted Chase. After some back-and-forth, Al-Hazza was reimbursed for the charge on her account.
“They left me a voicemail saying that, although they don't really agree with it, because it was a tap transaction, they -- in a way -- do feel my pain for this transaction. So, they decided to reimburse me for it,” Al-Hazza says.
Al-Hazza says she now checks her accounts daily and encourages people to be persistent, report unusual activity and do their research.
As I mentioned, I was in contact with Chase throughout the process.
In regard to filing a claim, they told me “Customers aren't liable for unauthorized transactions, no matter the payment method. We review all claims and make a decision based on the facts.”
One thing I want to stress is how important it is to report this kind of activity to authorities, specifically the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
It helps authorities pull together statistics and build cases against criminals robbing innocent people.
