Card payment fraud -13k in 48hrs -Help!

slopemaster

So long as you don't want a branch, smile is good - though not faultless.
Online banking, and UK call centres open 24 hours

CRThomas1

Exactly the same has happened to me. It appears whoever had access to our account knew exactly when my wages went in. We also had an unusually large amount of money in our account. We discovered 5K went out in under 4 days. Inside job? Yet Abbey seem to think that its not their problem, they will sort it out in their own good time and have told us nothing. We dont know who to phone. Different departments hand us on to other depts. Their customer service is appalling and when we eventually get our money back we will be leaving them straight away. Our biggest question is how does it take 7 - 10 days to send forms out to reclaim losses? Are these forms on computer and therefore only takes a click of a mouse to send out? Or are they writing them as we speak in the finest caligraphy that only a highly trained Tibetan monk is capable of carrying out and will then be sent to our home by Yak express?

badlydrawnbloke wrote: »

Just had a day from hell.

I was horrified to notice two card payments had debited my Abbey current account on Friday 24th Oct.

One for approx £6700, and another for approx £3100. Both were destined for the CO-OP bank. The large one was for ‘CO-OP COLLECTIONS’, which I presume is a debt. management dept .There was another £3100 transaction awaiting authorisation.This debited Saturday as Abbey refused to stop it.

I also noticed four other card payment transactions, all fewer than ten pounds, each which debited the account two days earlier. These were all destined for a PAYPAL account.
I immediately rang ABBEY and was transferred to their Visa disputes dept. So far so good. An employee told me not to worry and that she would process a claim for these transactions and forward the case to the fraud dept.

When I asked why such large transactions had been authorised, I was informed no one could answer this! This all eemed strange as only two weeks earlier I had tried to pay off my Barclaycard (£1034) and my card was declined, despite having sufficient funds. I was informed at the time it was due to the large size of the payment and this was declined to prevent fraud. How ironic.

My card had been used for the large transactions and my wife’s for the small PayPal transactions. Abbey informed me they would immediately cancel both cards to prevent any further fraudulent transactions.

The operator also agreed to finally speak to the fraud dept. for further guidance. I was told that she could not connect to this dept at the moment as there was a technical fault with fraud’s telephone lines. I was asked to ring back in half an hour, by which time the lines should be working. I asked what time the fraud dept. closed, and was informed “Five o’clock”. It was quarter to five. The operator asked me to ring back tomorrow.

On Saturday 25th October at 8.27am I rang the Visa disputes direct line but an automated message informed me the dept was closed and opened Monday to Friday. I then rang the telephone banking helpline and asked to be transferred to the fraud dept. The young gentleman informed me that the fraud dept. did not open on Saturday. I explained my situation and asked if anyone in the Abbey could help me on Saturday. “Unfortunately not”. The reply was depressingly all too familiar. Undeterred, I asked for the fraud depts. direct number and rang them shortly after 9am. They were closed. Do Abbey believe that fraudsters and crooks only work Monday-Friday,9-5?

I am now feeling extremely desperate and am without any money as the cards have been cancelled. At no time have Abbey informed me that I could go to my local branch and withdraw funds if I had a passport/driving licence to confirm my identity. (My friend has just told me about this).If it was not for my parents support this weekend, I would have had no money.

I believe there is one final twist in the tale. I recently applied for a personal loan with the Abbey. This was approved and placed in my bank account on the 9th October. No one except my wife and I knew about this loan, apart from Abbey employees. It was a couple of days later that I attempted to pay my Barclaycard bill of £1034, which was declined. When I tried to ring the Abbey, three foreign call centre operators failed to help. Two cut me off! I eventually was transferred to the authorisation dept. that after numerous security checks authorised the payment.

Who would know there was £12000 sitting in my account? This was an unusual amount and was only placed in my account on the 9th October. Had I alerted dishonest employees as to the loan funds sitting in my account?

Why would the fraudsters target this exact amount in such a short space of time?

Who would have access to both my card details and my wife’s?

Why would the fraudsters take such large payments and why were they approved?

Some people would think this is an ‘inside job’.

The postman today delivered a CO-OP credit card bill which was addressed to someone I have never heard of. This bill was for £3100. I rang the CO-OP who confirmed it was in receipt of my money and it was all fraudulent. They also confirmed they declined a payment from my card on the 22nd October as the adress did not match the card. The same day, the fraudster rang the CO-OP and changed the adress on the credit card account to my home adress .

How could the fraudsters also know my address?

Abbey don't seem in the slightest interested and they told me today that they are only just processing 'Visa Dispute' claims from the 9th of October.

Sorry to go on. It's my first post and I am not sure I will ever see my money again.
Can anyone help?

sandraroffey

my son in law has an account with abbey. i hasten to add he isnt nor has ever been in the position you folks are in, BUT he has also said the same about abbeys customers service. basically, it stinks!!!!! the most useless lot ever to draw breath!! too many incidents to list here, but once the last thing is resolved, where they didnt wire the money for buying his house on the day they were supposed to, and it still took another week, AND he had paid their fat fee to get it sent within the next 24 hours, well, suffice to say he will be changing accounts. incidentally, abbey are still sending all his mail to his old address even though he has filled in a change of address form 3 times now. once when he did that, they wrote to him to tell him that they couldnt write to him at his new address until he had done something else, and sent it to him at his new address!!! complete doughnuts.xxx

skintandscared_2

I have now abandoned my account with Scabby National and gone elsewhere. Their customer service is useless.

jjones4128

I am also in the same boat, see http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1275467

You need to phone Abbey fraud and state you will take the case to the FSA, they gave me the same old "we have a back log of cases etc" they have just paid the transactions back into my account and done an account switcher due to the fraud. I am intending on requesting compensation??????? But looking at the comments on my thread, people think I should'nt. I know how you feel, I was left without money for 11 days because the put a block on my account with 2 kids to feed.