suspected identity theft??? What to do!?

stephbond89

Ok, bare with me here...

Last week I noticed I had £2.50 left in my bank account, not much but I was happy it was in credit and not overdrawn!

So anyway, Monday or so, I looked in the account and my available balance had gone from £2.50 to £1.50, I hadn't used my card or bought anything offline for a week or so, and the money I had spent had gone out (I have a budget spreadsheet and put in every penny I spend so I can see whgat I should have left etc), so I was pretty confused, but put it down to just pennies here and there which I hadn't accounted for.

So yesterday I was checkin the bank again (I check it everyday since I had £35 taken from my account last month fraudulently), and again my available balance had gone down a pound to 50p!

So I phone the bank to see waht is going on, to be told no nothing has gone out oh wait there is an ear mark for £2 to be taken from the account the next few days, I'll put you onto someone else who can tell you more about it.

She tells me it looks like when you buy something like shopping online, but it isnt comign for a week or so, they check your bank details and card details by taken £1 but it goes back in again without ever really showing up, just to validate your account- this i understand as when I buy my online shopping from sainsburys this happens the night i order the food before the full payment is taken the day the shopping is delivered to me, but I said well I havent made any payments online or on the phone at all and certainly nothing on Sunday or today!

So all the bank (LLOyds) say is well theres nothing we can do until money is taken from the account!!! We are not well off at all, and live on each months wages, there is little left at the end of the month, literally pennies left over, so I am now very worried someone has again cloned my card and is using it to buy things online or off the phone and now I am worried that money is going to go out of my account in the next few weeks, we get paid in 10 days or so, but all the money is accounted for in the first few days, rent and bills so if all of the wages are stolen, it will be a week until it comes back to me from the bank at least a week meaning late rent late bills etc, yes I know they wont charge me for these missing things, but the companies may cut me off!! And my landlord mostr certainly wont be impressed!!

But the bank dont seem interested at all, they wont do nythin about it, I thought maybe they could cancel any payments which are going out in the next two weeks (as we know we have none to go out!!).

As i said last mointh I had £35 stolen from someone pretending to be sky- I am not with sky and when I phoned them and asked them about it, they were oblivious, I got the card whcih it was taken from cancelled, and we had no more issues until this week when this £2 has gone out...

Do the bank have an obligation to do somehting, what will they do if all our wages are stolen and none of our bills can be paid, would they give me an emergency overdraft until we get the money back when it would be completely paid off? Or would they just leave me to deal with it and hope it was all ok!?

Any advice would be amazing as I just dont know what to do now

iereboy

Suspected identity theft?? Or just theft?

You have to wait to see what comes out of the account.

If you are worried, get them to cancel the card and get a new one sent out.

99/100 times customers forget what they spent their money on.

Just wait till the transaction comes out.

If you think someone's stolen your identity check your credit report.

If your money is ever stolen the bank will give you your money back and support you unless they suspect you as a fraudster.

stephbond89

Well I mean money has been taken from the account via my debit card, is this theft and not identity theft??

It has happened before which worries me because the bank may think I am making payments to people and then wanting a refund!!! I have no way of prooving it is not me I suppose!! Which is annoying

Up to now nothing has been taken other than this £2, but do the bank have an obligation to refund me the money??

Mischa

Would it be worth closing down the account and opening up a new one. That's what I did after being victim to what I believe was card cloning. I'm with Santander, then Abbey, and they were fairly helpful once I explained that I wanted to close my account and everything associated with it and open a new one. never had a problem since! :-) It was a bit of hassle, but well worth it!

iereboy

Do a search on google to find out what identity theft is.

As i said - if you are that worried get them to cancel the card.

Patience is good as well - wait to see what comes out IF anything comes out of your account as well.

redpete

stephbond89 wrote: »

Any advice would be amazing as I just dont know what to do now

Sorry, can't help with the bank query but I would advise you not to use what looks like your real name and birth year in your MSE id (Stephanie Bond, born 1989?)

So all the bank (LLOyds) say is well theres nothing we can do until money is taken from the account!!!

I thought some money had been taken, £2 so far.

Davidl-ws

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your bank problems! I work with VeriSign, an internet security company, and we have a website which gives advice to consumers about staying safe online and avoiding becoming the victims of identity theft. Search for 'trust the tick' - it shows what you should look out for and stay clear of when entering personal details on websites.

In particular, you should change your online banking password often and avoid using a password that contains birthdays or names of your children, which are easy to guess. It’s also worth keeping an eye on the website address bar when inputting your login details and making sure it turns green, which shows the site is secure.

Hope this helps and you manage to sort your problem out soon.

Thanks,
David

samjef11_2

Davidl-ws wrote: »

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your bank problems! I work with VeriSign, an internet security company, and we have a website which gives advice to consumers about staying safe online and avoiding becoming the victims of identity theft. Search for 'trust the tick' - it shows what you should look out for and stay clear of when entering personal details on websites.

In particular, you should change your online banking password often and avoid using a password that contains birthdays or names of your children, which are easy to guess. It’s also worth keeping an eye on the website address bar when inputting your login details and making sure it turns green, which shows the site is secure.

Hope this helps and you manage to sort your problem out soon.

Thanks,
David

This thread was 1 month old post count.:money:

Olipro

of course, with the growing complexity of malware, they simply inject their own root certificate into a user's computer and then generate their own EV certificate for the fake banking website and poor old joe public won't have a clue unless you teach him how to identify phony root CAs in his cert store - if they even show up

samjef11_2

Olipro wrote: »

of course, with the growing complexity of malware, they simply inject their own root certificate into a user's computer and then generate their own EV certificate for the fake banking website and poor old joe public won't have a clue unless you teach him how to identify phony root CAs in his cert store - if they even show up

Great advice :j