HBOS Retail Fraud Team

iaiz

Hi all, was wondering if anyone has had any problems with the HBOS Fraud team?

Basically last month I checked my online account and noticed that over the course of about 20 days over £1000 had disappeared from my account. From my statement I could see that all the money had been spent on mobile phone top up cards, fast food shops and even at a hotel in Aberdeen.

As soon as I realised that the fraud had taken place I went straight to my bank and cancelled my card and gave details of all the transactions that I could see were fraudulent on the statement. After numerous phone calls back and forth to the HBOS retail fraud team I was sent a ‘proceeds of crime act declaration’ form to complete and return. After about a week I received a letter stating that my form had been received and that the claims were being sent to the retailers and it could take up to 30 days for HBOS to hear anything back. Today 6/11/08 with my account currently sitting at -£244.19 just 12 days after being paid and after not hearing anything for a while I phoned the HBOS retail fraud team again and was told that on the 17th October retail fraud sent out vouchers to the various different retailers requesting that the funds are returned. They also told me that the retailers have 45days to reply to the request and that if any one of the thirteen different retailers refuses to return the funds then my claim will be rejected. I asked them what I was to do about bills and payments that will be coming off the account during the 45 day time period and was told that it wasn’t their problem.

Anyone got any ideas what I can do next? It seems like everytime I phone them up they are stalling me and seem to fob me off with another excuse? I’m tempted to stick this in one of the newspapers to see if that speeds them on a bit!!

clueless1682

Hi

They should be able to give you a tempory overdraft whilst the fraud gets investigated to cover whats lost, once the fraud gets credited they'll remove the overdraft again - any charges for debit interest would be refunded.
If you are still required to fill in the the declaration, rather than post it back, if you can get to your local branch they'll fax it accross, saves it going missing in the post.
From experience, they're normally quite quick to refund the money. I assume they redund you then go chase the retailers for the money, if it happened that they believe the transaction were you, they'd debit the account again. Fingers crossed it all goes ok for you

nico26

Hi iaiz
Had this problem in march.I was in india at the time and had to fly home to sort out the mess. I discovered it by accident when I went to send money to my son for his birthday and it would not let me do it. I nearly passed out as I had just transferred £2000 into it a couple of days beforehand. There was £1600 sitting in the account when I checked online and lots of stupid transactions.I immediately phoned them and they checked everything cancelled the card but could not take the money out the account because it had loads of transactions transactions pending on it.I said they were all fraudulent as Id been in india for 3 months and it had only been getting used for SO but that didnt matter they had been authorised and had to be honoured. In a matter of 2 days they had gobbled up the lot . I had to fly back and sort it out sign declarations and open new accounts. I went into the branch and explained what had happened and they advised me to open a new account,They gave me an overdraft on the new account to cover standing orders until I got it sorted out. It took a good 5 or 6 weeks to get it all sorted but I got it back eventually.The problem is they have so much fraud its taking a bit of time to get through the cases. Luckily It was just getting used for standing orders etc while we were away.Go back to the branch and ask them for help. My transactions were all done over the internet.Where they got the details from I dont know as most of it was in America and gambling sites.

iaiz

Hi thanks for the reply's. looks like i will just have to wait for the bank to sort it out! It just feels like they are taking ages to do anything. They did up my overdraft to cover the bills but i still have to wait until they get the money back from the companies concerned before they refund any money to my account - Unfortunately!!

nico26

Yes its a pain in the butt. They will have appointed 1 person to deal with it.Ask them who it is and keep on top of it with them. I got all of mine back at the same time. Mind you I took some of it into my own hands and contacted some of the companies concerned as mine was all internet based and some of the companies were really nice and refunded the bank straight away I received all of it back at same time once everything was through.Its amazing what they can spend in a short time. .Good luck.

claire6hy

i dealt with the fraud team once
but it all went smoothly for me

hope you get it sorted
x

bobblebob

They also told me that the retailers have 45days to reply to the request and that if any one of the thirteen different retailers refuses to return the funds then my claim will be rejected

So you could be out of pocket if they dont want to give the money back? Whats happened to the "If a customer of our online service is a victim of online fraud, we guarantee that they won't lose any money from their account, and will always be reimbursed in full." How likely are they to refuse to return the funds?

Im currently waiting for the letter to come out for me to say what was taken and when. Is the form easy to understand?

iaiz

Hopefully the bigger companies that they used my card with should give the money back quite quickly ie Burger King, Pizza Hut, Vodafone however its the few independant fast food companies that are worrying me??

The letter the bank send you is fairly straight forward. It was the same as the one I filled in when I 1st made the claim at the bank. They list all the transactions that they think are fraudulent and you have to write a Y or N next to the ones that are. Shame they missed out £215 of obvious fraudulent transactions!! I sent them the letter explaining this with a spreadsheet I made up with all the transactions on it.

Hope you get everything sorted!!

londonuk2008

If we have a 'Chargeback' from our card company - we have to prove/produce evidence that the transaction was carried out correctly . If the slightest thing is wrong , we the retailer loses the money - so I can not see how Halifax can say what they have?

bobblebob

londonuk2008 wrote: »

If we have a 'Chargeback' from our card company - we have to prove/produce evidence that the transaction was carried out correctly . If the slightest thing is wrong , we the retailer loses the money - so I can not see how Halifax can say what they have?

What if all the details entered were correct, but were stolen? You would have no reason to believe the transaction was fraudulent

iaiz

Thats exactly what happened to me! My new card was stolen and the details used - So in effect the transaction was carried out correctly?