Lowes - Allowed fraudulent debit transaction
WARNING regarding Lowes: Yesterday, my girlfriend caught a $400 fraudulent debit card purchase while it was still a pending transaction and called Lowes customer service multiple times trying to preemptively stop/cancel the purchase. What did Lowes do?
NOTHING! They told her to call law enforcement and take it up with her bank. Today, after being told again by multiple Lowes representatives in the morning that the transaction was STILL pending, it finally went through in the afternoon. As many of you may already know, debit transactions are considered 'cash' transactions by banks and business institutions so basically, my girlfriend is out $400 - there are no safeguards or protections provided to people using debit cards.
So the crook got free stolen stuff but the kicker is, Lowes made a sale and profit! On top of that, despite proving that it was her card, Lowes still won't provide the transaction details!!
But why would they - if the criminal were preemptively caught, it would've hurt their sales! Lowes allowed a fraudulent debit transaction to take place, benefited from it and then shielded the criminal by not providing the transaction details.
We will be filing a claim in North Carolina's small claims court (since Lowes is incorporated there) to recover the loss (as well as travel expenses) since we can prove (via date-stamps on telephone records versus the transaction posting time) that we did all we could to prevent the transaction from processing but was stonewalled by Lowes, which enabled the fraud/loss to occur.
Monetary Loss: $400.
Location: Newark, Delaware
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I'm currently on hold for the third time today, trying to get Lowes to stop a nearly $100 charge on my debit account. This happened a month ago as well, and at that time they withdrew the charge. But today, my first "customer representative" transferred me to a random plumbing company!
Excuse me???, Loweโs was correct. You contact your bank so they can stop the transaction Loweโs has no power to do this.
Why didnโt you do what thy said? Iโm sorry, but thatโs really rather stupid of you.
Lowes is blameless. No, I do not work for Loweโs, but I have work for a bank, many of them.
They acctually chareged my bank account 700.00 and 2000.00 for a purchace that was 2000.00. Then sent a message stating purchase was declined by bank.
Charge was not declined.... Charged another credit card the original 2000.00.
A crook charged my debit card $893.97 from Pasadena TX,I live in PA. I contacted my bank right away.
The charges were still pending, but I can't get any one{on the phone} from Lowe's to stop the charges. I have bought alot of things from Lowes, that may not happen in the future.
If it is a Visa or MasterCard debit card they provide the same fraud protection as a credit card.
Similar issue, my charge was 1945.02 dollars....
Similar, please read my comment above. I'm thinking of turning this over to the FBI. Defrauding a National Bank.
NEVER EVER use a debit card. Use a credit card and keep the balance paid off.
With a debit card the money comes directly out of your checking account and you have to fight to get it back in the case of fraud. With a credit card you can dispute the charge and not pay it if there is fraudulent use, keeping your money safe.
Get a credit card that gives you cash back. Make electronic payments weekly to keep you balance down and build up a savings account with the cash back payments you receive.
Just had over $2100.00 of fraudulent debits from my bank account. All purchases were at Lowe's in Homestead, FL.
I am in NC. They actually had my PIN number. Interesting though 2 days prior to this happening I shopped at a Lowe's in Banner Elk, NC.
Never using my new debit card again. Getting money put back in account from bank but, what a headache!
Wow same thing happened to me today stoley PIN and card info somehow. Used it at the same Lowe's you described.
I just had a second fradulant charge After closing the last account that also had fraudulent charge..both for LOWES #00907* 866-483-**** NC. $649.78!!!Lowes can't/ wont tell me anything...said file police report.I called my CC and canceled my account again. Oddly these both happened after I used my CC for a small purchase at my local LOWES on the west coast!
I also had 183.00 stolen from a person who made a duplicate of my MC and used it at Lowes. They were here uncooperative and basically told me there is nothing they can do.
Crook used it at automated check out and Ran it as a CC. Sure would like to locate person who did that.
Same thing just happened to me. The transaction is pending, I have the credit card number, Lowes refuses to provide any information or cancel the transaction.
Guess they haven't changed their poor practices. Not shopping at Lowes again.
after reading some of these cases I will let this go. Non Military with a Military ID gets all the discounts , you people must have to much money to care about penny's, but yet we the public pay the price, when I get the chance----walk out
Yesterday at lowes we had the same issue. Our transaction was denied as a debit and switched to credit.
At that time, it made us call a number for an approval code. We were not the only ones. At the same time, we noticed everyone in line who was trying to use their card was doing the same thing. The employees were getting frustrated and the calling backup.
At that time I thought that the system had been hacked and we should go straight to our bank which happened to be in the parking lot of lowes. We completed the 150.00 translation and left. We went right over to Chase Bank. We reported the incident to the bank manager.
He pulled up our account and found that they had processed the bill three times. The bank stopped payment on two of the transactions. Then he contacted the fraud department. The fraud department was already aware of the problem and working on it.
We then contacted the store manager of Lowes who was not aware of the problem and stated she would immediately contact the corporate office.
My advice to you is contact your banking institution. They have a specialized fraud department that takes care of these things and most of the time they take care of obvious fraudulent transactions.
Do your research, debit cards are subject to the same protections as credit cards. Visa and Mastercard require all banks to offer ZERO LIABILITY on unauthorized purchases.
Sure, you'll be out the 400 for a little while, but it is required by federal law for you to be reimbursed for fraudulent purchases.
Lowe's has no reason to provide you with details. File a police report and they'll be required to turn over all information to law enforcement and your bank.
You're clueless. Nothing Lowes can do, they are not giving items away for free.
You contact your back and if it's fraud they're the ones who correct the issue. Does not matter if it's a debit card they can cancel and stop payments on it just like a credit card. At the end of the day it's not Lowes job to protect you from fraud it's you and your bank. If Lowe's sells something they need to be paid for it.
They're not in business to be giving stuff away for free because you lost your or got your card information stole. Matter of fact scammers would scam Lowes hard if it was easy as that.
Hey Lowes that wasn't me give me back my money. You're going to waste your time and money in small claims court, you will lose.
Itโs obvious that you donโt understand the situation. Loweโs has policies to check signatures and or identification.
It is gross negligence and conspiracy to commit fraud for the result of monetary gain.
To add insult to injury they also interfere by blocking the customer access to a transaction information for the purpose of monetary gain. As far as Iโm concerned itโs impeding the resolution of criminal activity for monetary gain.
Perhaps you donโt understand the situation. As part of the Merchant Agreement between the stores and credit card companies.
Both Visa and MasterCard prohibit merchants from requiring customer ID as a condition for accepting their credit or debit cards. All you need is a signed card. American Express doesn't ban merchants from requiring customer ID, though it discourages the practice.
The laws reguarding this varies from State to State, ie: the California Supreme Court recently ruled that merchants in that state cannot collect zip codes from credit card customers in most cases.
Loweโs management and the posters โuhduhโ and โSharkNastyโ have it right. File a claim with your bank and law enforcement, they advocate on your behalf.