Bank charges as a result of fraud

Captnjack

My wife was terminally ill and died in Oct 2006 when l had finished grieving l checked my bank account and l noticed l had suddenly started getting bank charges for well over a year this after over 25 years of never going overdrawn l went through the statements and discovered regular small payments and a few larger ones that when totalled added to over £1000, and these were the cause of the charges. l wrote to the bank about the charges which was the Alliance & Leicester who replied that a court case was in progress and the FIA had advised them put all claims for repayment of charges on hold until the outcome of the court case which is what they did, l recently received a letter from them stating the courts had ruled charges to be fair, surely banks cannot benefit from fraudulent transactions, l did get back just short of the £1000 but the following day £165 was taken in charges and the charges ended up totalling £600 all because of the fraud, l was left with just £340 of the recovered money. Can l claim these charges back? If so how do l go about it?

BenS1

This was one of the first things I asked my bank when this happened to me in August.

So you have told them about the fraud and they have done their investigation? Were you using the account while the regular payments were being taken?

davidgmmafan

Erm if the charges were generated as a result of fraud, and the bank in refunding the admitted that then the charges should also be waived.

The only potential problem I can see is the FOS may support the view that it should've been noticed sooner by the account holder that the payments were not genuine. However under the circumstances I would hope they would still conclude the charges should be cancelled if they were caused by the fraudulent payments.

Furthermore I would say the bank did not investigate your complaint properly initially since the test case really did not apply. If the payments were fraudulent I don't believe they should be charging you. They are essentially charging you for the fact thier system isn't secure...