nationwide & credit card scams

a couple of weeks ago, DH got a letter from nationwide saying that some employee's briefcase containing possibly sensitive client information had been stolen. we didn't think too much of it until we got a call from the bank on our way down to heathrow last week telling us that they suspected bri's credit card had been cloned, because there had been some recent unusual charges. so they put a block on the card & cancelled the account.

now this is the weird part: nationwide told us straight away that they were refunding all of the dodgy charges straight away. doesn't it usually take ages of haggling to get your money back in cases like this? we're thinking that whatever happened was the bank's fault, and that's why they reimbursed us straight away.

to top all of this off,  when we went to check in with BA at heathrow for our flight to chicago (and again on the way back at o'hare) we were told that there was a problem with the card & were sent to the ticketing desk to explain it all. it was a chore & we very nearly missed both flights.

anybody else had anythng like this happen with nationwide recently?

 I remember the theft of this Nationwide stuff being in the news a while back, I think it was a laptop? so they already know the information was stolen so there's nothing for them to verify etc, hence getting your money reimbursed so quickly. In other cases (eg somebody's wallet being stolen) they probably have to do a bit more checking before reimbursement.

No, you will often get a call from the bank saying they've spotted some unusual activity on the account.  They have a system which checks for unusual spending patterns, you usually have to confirm if the transactions are genuine or not, but that's it.  You might have to sign a declaration which they send through the post, but that's all.  These are different from a case where you spot an unusual transaction on your statement and call them up about it, which can result in a bit of haggling.

Just to let you know, this hagging when you do phone them up is usually for a good reason.  When customers used to phone us up with unrecognised transactions, more than half of them, at least, became recognised transactions after a few questions were asked, or some more information was given.  You'd be surprised the number of people who forget they've bought something, or the name of the store, or the fact that their wife also has a credit card on the same account etc.