We have a customer that was out of town last weekend and has now claimed that his phone and his debit card were stolen and over $7000.00 in POS transactions and ATM withdrawals were made all using PIN.
We had received a phone call from him verifying his SSN and account password which allowed his limits to be raised. Our 3rd party company that alerts customers and us of suspicious looking activity also sent an email which were responded to saying that the charges were legitimate charges which allowed the card to remain open. He said that his SSN was not taken and he does not know how they would know the PIN but PIN was used with no declines due to wrong attempts.

He is now claiming his phone was stolen and the person calling was not him. He said that they had his phone so they responded to our emails saying that the transactions were not fraud. I spoke with him for 2 days and both days he claimed that he had no idea who took his card and phone. He said it was an IPHONE X which was locked I asked how they would have his PIN and it was also locked with facial recognition and he said he didn't know how.

My supervisor then spoke to him yesterday and now he has said that he took a cab and when he went to pay the cab driver that he took the phone out of his hand and drove off? Completely different story than what he told me. He told me several times he had no idea who took his phone or card. We are trying to figure out what we could use to legitimately decline this claim. Do you have any tips?

"when he went to pay the cab driver that he took the phone out of his hand and drove off?"
Do you mean the customer is saying the cab driver stole his phone? If that was the case- we would consider it a case of gross negligence that he did not report it. We view gross negligence as being more than carelessness - and bordering on recklessness. Did he file a police report?

The theft of the phone has nothing to do with the actual transactions. Whether he reported that to the police is irrelevant. What is relevant is knowing more about the transactions. What were they for, where were they conducted, etc. Is this just someone having second thoughts about a wild weekend or something different. That combined with the lack of coming forth with a consistent story makes me skeptical. Can you order footage from the ATM withdrawals?

He did file a police report with the New Orleans police department and we have to wait for the report. We haven't seen it yet. He only just started saying that the cab driver stole his card and phone. That wasn't the story from the beginning he was saying he had no idea who would have done it. Now he says the cab driver took it from his hand and drove off.

We will definitely be asking for footage of the withdrawals just don't know how long that will take.

So you provide provisional credit and cross your fingers that you'll get some usable ATM surveillance shots within the 45-day deadline for completing your investigation. Personally, I think the guy had a rough weekend in NOLA and can't remember that he made the transactions. There's no incentive for bartenders and merchants to turn away inebriates.

Check his social media and see if he was posting his activities during this time

Oh, I like the social media twist! But I agree with the above. I will counter Randy's comment that the police report doesn't matter. While not required in any way, it does add validity to the claim. That said:

- get a copy from the PD. There was a recent case of reported ID theft and the customer provided a fake police report to back up the claim
- get any video
- ask the customer how they paid anything during this period
- this is surprising similar to a story I read a few months ago where a silicon valley exec got a notice from his phone carrier that they were going to miss his business. He inquired as to the meaning and they said they had a request to move his account. By the time he got home and on his PC all he could do was see his retirement accounts be stolen. All the multifactor authorizations went to the thief who now had his phone account and he couldn't stop them.

I also don't like the "I don't know" for the tough questions of PIN and phone access. If the US Government can't get into an iPhone I don't see a cabbie doing it.

I'd be looking for that doubt that allows you to deny the claim. I still remember looking at ATM photos of "ladies of the evening" using our customers ATM card. He'd partake of the services and have them pull the funds, then say it was unauthorized. Where were the transactions, when were they, where was your customer at that time, did he loan the card and PIN to anyone, etc.