NCB addressing technical issue affecting Uber transactions

 

National Commercial Bank Jamaica says it is actively addressing a technical issue affecting Uber transactions made by some customers using their Visa debit cards.  

 

The issue resulted in certain transactions not being charged to customers' accounts, leading to unpaid balances and in some cases potential fraudulent activity or scams.

 

The bank says it has processed the owed balances where there are funds in the accounts or temporarily placed liens on accounts with insufficient funds until the outstanding amounts are recovered. 

 

Some 8,000 accounts have been affected.  

 

Danielle Cameron Duncan, Vice President of Payment Services and Digital Channels at National Commercial Bank Jamaica, says 300 of those accounts have been flagged for suspicious activity and blocked pending further review.

 

"So somebody will be taking 700 Uber rides a month, that's 23 rides a day essentially. People will be doing things like leaving tips of $30,000 for the driver when a transaction only costs $800. So we started those investigations, and for 300 accounts in particular, we froze those accounts to start with just so we could stop those malicious actors in particular right from continuing to take advantage of what was obviously in the process," she disclosed. 

 

Mrs. Cameron Duncan said the transactions posted so far relate to the period May to October this year.

 

She said NCB is willing to discuss payment options for those customers who did not seek to take advantage of the system and are having a difficulty paying for all the transactions at once. 

 

Those customers are urged to email cem@jncb.com. Matters will be handled on a case-by-case basis. 

 

Mrs. Cameron Duncan was speaking Wednesday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines.