Maybank: Unauthorized Visa Debit Visa Transactions

On 7th March, I found out that my Maybank Debit Visa card was missing from my purse when I wanted to go to their branch in Uptown PJ to withdraw cash out. My mother told me to go home and check first...

Horrors beyond horrors, when I arrived home and checked online that my card has been swiped & used in unauthorized transactions by someone on a shopping spree across town on an amount of up to RM500!!

MY GOODNESS!!!

What was so distressing was that the transactions at the hypermarkets are manned by humans, and require a person's signature. It is understandable that the transactions at service stations were not manned, so no prior signature was required, but it seems that the transactions at TESCO and MYDIN were allowed to pass through.

The question I am asking here is, shouldn’t the staff at these terminals have checked that the signature on the transaction slip were to match the signature on the card?

Maybank switched their yellow ATM card to the Cherry Debit Visa card promoting the benefits of their "ease of shopping" and safety features of embedded chip.

However, but what I have realised from this incident is that although the bankcards in Australia have yet to be chip embedded, it was generally still very safe to use. EFTPOS is a commonplace practice, using normal bankcard for everyday transaction with the added security of pin-access to prevent fraud and unauthorized transactions from taking place.

In allowing the bank to switch from just an ATM to a Visa Debit card, customers would hope that Maybank will ensure that the security of its cards would not be compromised as it is too with the normal ATM card, as Maybank states on their website for the Visa Debit page info, listing among its benefits to provide “peace of mind with smart chip security”.

It can be seen here that the former Maybank Yellow ATM card seems to be even more safer as should these cards fall into the wrong hands, it still requires a pin keyed for any transactions to pass through, but the VISA Debit does not seem to provide the same kind of security. Further, even with an embedded pin card for supposed higher security is not very useful at the terminals if the personnel managing the terminals do not even bother to check whether the signatures of the cards are matching.

Perhaps Maybank should think twice about promoting the conversion from the ATM to the Visa Debit if that is the case as this will really shake the confidence of their customers in allowing merchants who have personnel who are not discerning, or do not care about the security concerns of their customers.

So today, attaching the printout of the police report I made yesterday, and my complaint letter, I sent in to the Maybank Mega Mandung. All I can do now is wait and see what the staff at Maybank will do.