TSB online banking suspended

Dagobert

To-day, when I attempted to log on to Lloyds TSB's online banking I found my online account suspended.

I phoned the online helpdesk and it was explained to me that they monitor irregularities. In my case, so I was told, the fact that I had logged on via a different IP address had caused my account suspension.

I got my account only in January and I had only logged on three times since then. Most users on a dial-up internet connection will have dynamically allocated IP addresses, which will be different virtually every time. Not even all ADSL users are on static IP addresses. Even if TSB were only to compare the first one or two quads of the IP address, they would have to suspend the accounts of thousands of customers. Hence I don't believe that this story is true.

Does anyone have a more plausible explanation?

innovate

This is outrageous, and as you say, unlikely to be the reason. Surely they have nothing in their T&Cs that stipulates you must use the same IP address (impossible, anyway). Did they ever pro-actively try to contact you to as you about different IP addresses?

The only potential explanation to do with IP addresses I can think of is that they have a blacklist of IP addresses known to be used by fraudsters, and that one or several of them tried to get into your account. Nonetheless, they should have immediately attempted to contact you once they felt your account should be locked.

I would write a strongly worded complaint letter (outlining any financial inconvenience this got you into - - you never know, you might get compensation :grinheart ) and then proceed to close the account.

Dagobert

Thanks for your comments, innovate.

innovate wrote:

The only potential explanation to do with IP addresses I can think of is that they have a blacklist of IP addresses known to be used by fraudsters, and that one or several of them tried to get into your account.

This was not the case. The advisor read out the previous 3 successful login attempts to me and they knew who these IP addresses belonged to.

I shall observe this for a while. We log the IP addresses on our server and they are guaranteed to be different every time I bank with TSB. If my account gets suspended again I will write a letter requesting a more technically accurate explanation.

I can't believe that the changing IP addresses were the reason for the suspension or they would be very busy indeed re-activating their customers' accounts.

surfergirl_3

Hi Dagobert,

Please see thread today marked

LLOYDS TSB CUST BEWARE re fraudulent emails, could this have anything to do with your problem?

Son had same warning last night when he logged on.

Cheers Surfergirl

Dagobert

surfergirl, thank you for pointing out the TSB phishing scam.

However, this was not what happened to me. When I logged on via the TSB website I found that TSB had suspended my account.

grumbler

Dagobert wrote:

However, this was not what happened to me.

However, this could explain why they are taking extra precautions now. Online banking is very delicate thing. My friend (and he is not a dilettante in computing and online banking) had his and his wife's acconts (Barclays) empted online by somebody. Infestigation continues for months and the money hasn't been refunded yet. Better be safe than sorry ...

exil

Exactly. Would you rather the TSB were a bit paranoid and barred your account - or that some fraudster emptied the account for you?

Dagobert

exil wrote:

Exactly. Would you rather the TSB were a bit paranoid and barred your account - or that some fraudster emptied the account for you?

Your comment is totally beside the point.

The point of my original posting was to establish the technical reason why my account had been deactivated. As I pointed out a significant number of internet users has dynamic rather than static IP addresses.

If the reason the TSB advisor gave me, namely the use of different IP numbers, had been the cause of the account suspension, then TSB would have to constantly deactivate thousands of users' accounts. I hardly believe that to be the case. Therefore the only conclusion can be that the advisor was talking nonsense.


As far as online fraud is concerned, the only way a fraudster can gain access to an account is by getting hold of the login details.

This could be achieved by a so-called brute force attack, which would only be possible if the bank allowed their users to use unsafe passwords.

Much more likely, the user will have followed the instructions of a phishing email, or the login details were stolen digitally or otherwise, for instance because the user allowed the browser to store them or because the user stored somewhere on the PC, which were then collected by a virus.

You will struggle to find a case where it isn't the user's fault when account details get compromised.

exel1966

I Have regularly been logging into my Lloyds TSB account from various places all with differing IP addresses and have never had a problem, so the excuse they're using doesn't wash with me.

They did suspend my account once due to suspicious activity as they called it.
I transferred £5000 from my on-line saver to my current account on a saturday. On realising I couldnt then set up an outside transfer til the tuesday I transferred the money back to the online saver so I wouldnt lose 2 days interest. Account then suspended and as it was a weekend it couldn't be reversed til the monday !!
Ok, it's good that they have security proceedures, but a simple courtesy call prior to suspending the account may have been a better thing to do.

melancholly

i log into my internet banking from a variety of machines (home, work, OHs, parents, sometimes even on holiday) - i have internet banking with halifax, natwest and A&L and none of them has every queried it. all sounds a bit odd. maybe they have gone into security over-drive because of the major security risk, and have taken a temporary precaution of blocking logins from new IPs?!?

hopefully you didn't have to wait for a letter with new security details to get back in?!

Dagobert

exel1966 wrote:

I Have regularly been logging into my Lloyds TSB account from various places all with differing IP addresses and have never had a problem, so the excuse they're using doesn't wash with me.

Thanks for confirming this. It could not possibly the case or they would be reactivating hundereds of accounts every day!

I think it is more likely that their software tries to detect a transaction pattern and flags up anything that doesn't fit with it.