Abbey Account Fraud

steverino1975

Hello everyone,

I would appreciate the views and general opinions of the masses with regards to my query if anyone would be kind enough to offer assistance, because Im at the end of my tether.

To set the scene about 6 weeks ago, I went to a cash machine and was only able to withdraw a small sum of money, knowing full well that I had alot more available. That evening I looked at my online banking and noticed that a large sum had been transferred to HBOS and a mobile had been topped up and 3 oyster payments had been made........oh and one cheque for £9000 had been paid into my acc in picadilly. Not being of the suspicious kind I automatically thought that my acc had been amalgamated with someone else's and so did the guy at the abbey call centre when I immediately called them that very eve. I was told that they would look into this and call me back. After no call a few days later I called Abbey again (as what a surprise, no return call) My account was now £9000+ in debt, my acc was frozen, cant get to online banking etc etc. I eventually after being passed from pillar to post ended up with a rather nice lady in the fraud team who stated this was classic fraud, someone had my bank details emptied my acc, paid in a false cheque and trsf all the money out. After a long conversation I was asked to send a letter from my company stating that I was at work on certain days and what I thought was my transactions and what was fraudulent. I did this immediately and after a couple of days followed this up. I was passed from UK fraud team (who asked me to send in the info) to Spanish fraud team and after 20 mins of being passed around was hung up on, rather infuriating. The next week I had to go into town with a cheque for my wages from my company as my acc was frozen and would not accept a bacs payment embarrasingly enough I had to go to cash converters and it cost me over £100 to cash. I went into my local branch who refusedto help or take ownership of the problem and was categorically told I could only deal with the spanish fgraud dept. not to go into it any further to bore you all, but it has been a further 5 weeks on now. I have not been contacted by Abbey once I have constantly had to chase I am getting nowhere, I have no answers and no bank account at the moment. I have written to Abbeys complaints dept but have been told I have to wait a further 4 weeks for a reply before I can contact the omsbudsman. Can any one suggest anything else?
Im fed up more with the fact that my 1st initial call to Abbey should have stopped my account being frzen in the first place. Has anyone else had an experience like this? how long should it take to resolve?

Any help at all would be gratefully received. Many thanks in advance.


Steve

jonesMUFCforever

You do not have to wait for a letter of deadlock before involving the Financial Ombudsman anymore so I would give them a ring pronto.

Paul_Herring

In addition to Jones' comment:

Have you actually visited a branch in person yet to get this sorted? Ask very politely, but strenuously, to be passed up the management chain until you can get someone to give you some information as to why this is taking a silly amount of time?

Consider opening at least one other current account as well. With a bank that isn't connected to Santander. Bit late for this particular problem, but you never know why you might need a 2nd/3rd account in the future.

HamiltonL

I assume the Spanish fraud team would look into the cheque.

However the Oyster card payments and mobile top-up have to be dealt with by Abbey Disputes - 0845 601 7238 (office hours during the week). Be quick though as you have a 60 day period to log the dispute. Call them before the week is out if you can.