JohnH

Thanks everyone! Yes, Kevin, Sian was very helpful to me. She responded whenever she said she would and kept me up to date with what was (or was not) happening. Good luck in getting your problem sorted.

This morning, all the fraudulent transactions, together with the resulting bank charges, were reversed - at last! At one stage I thought it was all going to turn to rat poo, when the CA fraud department threw the file out because I didn't have the necessary crime report, but, thanks to the efforts of Sian at Britline, who persuaded her boss to take up the case, it's all fixed. That's it!!

We now have new cards and new PIN numbers - we're still missing our €900, but the bank keep telling me that it's only a matter of time. Exactly how much time seems to be something of a moveable feast, but several different people have told me that the whole process 'usually' takes about four weeks. Once the dust settles on this episode, I'm going to try to get them to change the account number. I found it a wee bit worrying that this didn't happen automatically, since the current account number has, obviously, been compromised.

Thanks for the advice Lizzie - I certainly will continue to pester CA. As for the crime report, the amusement at the local nick was caused by the thought that anyone would be foolish enough to think that they would be interested in dealing with a crime committed in another country! The guy on the desk suggested that I should report it to the French police, because the card cloning took place in France and to the Dutch police, because the theft of money took place in Holland. He was totally unimpressed by my suggestion that, as a UK resident, I might expect a little assistance. "We don't have a procedure for that!" he said, when I suggested that he might look at the documentation I had with me and write a note to the effect that, in his opinion, an offence had taken place. He was, however, most impressed by the ingenuity of whoever it was had copied the card!

The gap between the last genuine use of a card and the first fraudulent transaction was about three weeks. Between times we had received a statement, which, naturally showed nothing untoward. We have on-line access to our account but, since we weren't using it in the following weeks, I had not logged on to check balances - I felt I had no reason to do so. One learns from experience and, learning from this experience, I will always check on-line accounts in future on a regular basis. Today, on request from the bank, I cut the two cards through the middle and posted them to CA - I was told that forensic examination of the shards might reveal something. Yeah right!

We have a joint Britline account, which is used fairly infrequently - the odd cheque to pay bills and the debit cards for shopping during our half a dozen or so visits to France in the course of a year. Everything was progressing splendidly, or so we thought, until the arrival of a statement showing a number of withdrawals, on two separate days from two different cash dispensers - in AMSTERDAM! Since both of us were at work in the UK on the two days in question and neither of us has been to Amsterdam for several years, these transactions tended to stand out from the rest of the statement. In total, exactly €900 had been removed from the account, a figure which was remarkably symetrical considering that it included not onlt the six transactions but also the bank charges incurred. It would appear that one of our debit cards has been cloned. Neither card has been out of our possession, or even out of our sight to be swiped behind a counter, so how and when the details were captured is unclear. So far, the attitude of CA has been sympathetic, although I can sense a small tidal wave of bureaucracy approaching. I was, for instance, told to obtain a crime report from the police in the UK ( ! ), a request that caused no little amusement when I went into the local station. This is still a developing situation and I'll post updates, from time to time, when something/anything happens - meanwhile I'd be interested to discover how the situation was resolved by anyone else who might have experienced a similar situation.

[quote user="cooperlola"] My rule of thumb : Unsure? Use vous - can't go wrong or be unintentionally insulting. I have a good french friend who says she has been known to get a few funny looks from her own casual habit of tu toyer ing all the time! [/quote] This is a good system and one which I employ myself - only using "tu" when it is used to me. I have a French friend who is horrified at many of the examples of what he sees as the erosion of the French language - "le weekend", for example, exasperates him enormously. He addresses his wife as vous! My friend may be more than slightly eccentric but, sometimes, after I've been entertained by one of his 'things aren't what they used to be' rants, I'm reminded that it is possible to offend people, without meaning to, by appearing to be unmannerly. And isn't the French sense of politesse one of the reasons why we enjoy being allowed to share their world?

Just a thought Andy - I'm sure you'll have time be called many more!

As a matter of interest Andy are you the late-eighties-IBM Andy Philpott?

Paul - I admire (and aspire to) your style hang on to it! John.

Thanks Andy! It it looks like your experience is similar to mine. I have booked through Holiday Autos and been directed to Europcar and I'm well used to the sprint round the car park! Sadly, on the last several occasions, even doing this hasn't avoided a queue around the front of the building. My experience with Hertz wasn't good - even though I'd pre-paid and was clutching the paperwork, I still had to queue to collect the car keys, only to be told that the care wouldn't be available for another twenty minutes. I guess we both need to do a bit more research. As to your question, we're about halfway/ten minutes between Roquebrune sur Argens and the coast at Les Issambres. John.

We have a mobile home in the Var, which we visit whenever we can get away from work for a few days. Because we do not have the time to drive down, our visits entail hiring a car from Nice airport and, over the last several years, we have done our bit to keep Europcar, in particular, in funds. Europcar has two advantages over its competitors - its rates tend to be slightly less eye-wateringly outrageous and one can go straight to the pick-up office, without having to first pay a visit to the desk in the arrivals hall. There is however a downside - Europcar's success means that their facilities at Nice are so overstretched that I have been known to queue for over an hour to get to the desk in the office, before finding that either the vehicle I have been allocated is not ready and/or when the vehicle arrives it has damage which needs to be noted and signed off by a Europcar person, thus entailing another trip to the office! Any, preferably practical, suggestions as to an alternative to this frustration would be welcome. I have tried alternative car hire companies which operate from Nice Côte d'Azur airport.