BANK ACCOUNT CLEARED OUT - HACKER - PLEASE HELP?

pennyuk

I always apologise first in case I've posted in the wrong place (again!).

The reason I'm posting this message is that I'm feeling pretty desperate - it's the weekend and I'm unable to get any help until Monday, so I hoped that one of you lovely people may have had some experience with this and offer me some help?

I joined a gambling website recently that I'd read about in this very forum. Within a short period of time I was down on my money so quit.

Words cannot describe the sheer shock I got when I found out that my bank account had been cleared out (and even gone into an unagreed overdraft) to the tune of over £4000.

I'm still shaking whilst I type this. The gambling site is UK based and sends emails to confirm each deposit. Obviously I didn't get any emails to let me know that someone was depositing over 40 times during a 3 day period.

I checked my account with this site and it shows that I didn't deposit any more money after I officially quit.

My problem and panic is... how on earth do I prove that it wasn't me using/blowing this money when I did indeed have an account with them? Why did the gambling site allow a change of email address? Why did the bank allow 'me' to spend/deposit sooo much without querying it?

As previously stated, I can't find out anything until Monday (fraud side of bank account not open until then) so until that time, I won't sleep... hence any help/happy news would be ever so much apprecaited!

Thanks for your help in advance
Penny

VH

If you have been ripped off then you cannot afford to sit around.

Ring your bank now (they should be open 24 hours) and tell them what has happened straight away. They may be able to put a block onto your account as there is theoretically nothing stopping more money being withdrawn. If you have registered things like Debit Cards with this Gambling site then you would be advised to cancel them all immediately rather than take a chance.

You would also be advised to contact the police and report the fraud immediately. The faster you do this the better any case for retrieving money will look. Your bank will probably insist you speak to the police straight away.

scheming_gypsy

My problem and panic is... how on earth do I prove that it wasn't me using/blowing this money when I did indeed have an account with them?  Why did the gambling site allow a change of email address?  Why did the bank allow 'me' to spend/deposit sooo much without querying it?

The gambling site should have recorded the IP address of transactions, so you report it to the bank, they'll report it to the police, they'll contact the gambling site and they'll check the transaction history of your account

Noobie_2

Pennyuk - hope things are getting sorted re bank, etc.

I'm not an expert on this so you might want to check this advice out elsewhere (if you haven't already had some from police / bank).

If you're concerned that it's YOUR pc that's been hacked you may want to check that s/he isn't still lurking there / can't come back.

At risk of repeating myself (from other threads).... a good place to look for info on how to check/prevent this is the Techie Questions & Discussion part of this MSE site.  If you wanted to, you can also post a thread there, eg, "I've been hacked, how do I stop it recurring?".  

kirstyreanne

I'm really sorry to hear about this. I hope everything turns out ok for you.

jaimeo

Depending on your bank...you should be OK.

The bank will most likely try to establish HOW someone could have taken your money.

Back in the day when I worked in fraud there were Point Of Sale codes. Back then, if the retailer had never held your card in their hand, then the leap of faith that they take accepting it was their fault.

Your bank should be happy to help you. If the cash amount was around 4000 in total they will investigate but more than likely someone else will have had it done to them. They will look at your spending history etc.

I think you will be fine. Even when people did silly things that allowed others access to their money the bank almost always refunded regardless.