£370 stolen through itunes, HSBC about as useful as a kick in the teeth

TeacherCat

So on Saturday I noticed that my bank account was about £400 short on cleared funds then I was expecting (had I not just transferred £350 from savings it would have been at £0 available cleared). I assumed that the £350 hadn't cleared for some reason and logged off. Some hours later I got 1 receipt from itunes for a gift voucher for £10 to an random email address. Beginning to panic I logged into itunes and discovered 37 identical transactions which were all gifts to *MY PASSWORD*, which were all taken from my account in the space of 10 minutes. Obviously I emailed itunes (no phone number available) and contacted my bank (HSBC), who cancelled my card and notified their fraud department. The woman I spoke to said it was obviously fraudulent activity and that their fraud team would be in touch. 36 hours later I get a phone call from a woman at HSBC who tells me that since the money hasn't actually left my account it doesn't count as fraud and they can't do anything, but I should call them back when the charges show on my statement. They also asked if I had used itunes prior to this fraud. Having looked at the forum I have seen some posts from July where HSBC originally refused to refund the money because people had signed up to itunes and therefore had put themself at risk. Where do I stand? Whoever took this money literally took money until my bank account ran out of funds - I was just lucky I happened to have £500 in other accounts otherwise I'd be completely screwed right now and yet HSBC are basically not doing anything about it.

I've also contacted itunes who have been even less helpful and have suggested I contact my legal team about litigation if I'm not happy with the service they provide in an incredibly patronising email that goes no way towards answering any of my points raised.

What can I do? I have a HSBC advance account which is supposedly covered for online fraud, but if they're going to claim it's not fraud then where do I stand. I'm so angry right now since £370 is absolutely nothing to either itunes or hsbc, but to me it's a huge amount of money, that I can't afford to miss!

Please help me lovely people

MrsTinks

Can I start by suggesting that IMMEDIATELY you change ALL your online password for all sites you use where you can spend or move money? Paypal, amazon etc... Run a full security check with your antivirus - an online one just to make sure (google Housecall by Trend Micro)

I assume your bank is saying that they can't do anything till the funds actually leave your account? I think they're wrong personally but it's not my area of expertise... did you speak to their fraud department?

TeacherCat

Yeah, i cancelled cards and spent the weekend coming up with unique passwords for any accounts I could think of.

Yes they've told me they can't do anything until the money has actually left the account. I used to work for them and I know they can see all the transactions as pending transactions on my account so I don't understand why they have to wait. I spoke to a woman who said she'd then contacted fraud and the rather stupid sounding woman this morning seemed to think she was from card services because fraud were going to be involved until the money had left my account and I'd called them back.

adamc260

TeacherCat wrote: »

Yes they've told me they can't do anything until the money has actually left the account.

Surely the best way to remedy the situation and prevent fraud is for them to prevent the funds leaving if your advising you didn't authorise the transactions... I'd ring back and speak to someone else personally.

You get 2 different teams in HSBC's 'Fraud department'

One who are based in the UK and the other who are based in.... call centres not in the UK! *cough... bit further east! cough*

When I had my card cloned I got a call from a UK call centre who were really helpful and fixed the issue for me. The second time I had my card cloned (very unlucky person) it was coming from the 2nd call centre who were a lot less helpful =/

savemoney

Check your computer for viruses and keyloggers your pc may be become compromised

I am surprised you bank didn't contact you my bank Satander did 3 times at xmas for multiple ordered I placed on net from various sites it caused me grief but that said better than being scammed

adamc260

savemoney wrote: »

Check your computer for viruses and keyloggers your pc may be become compromised

I am surprised you bank didnt contact you my bank Satrander did 3 tiems at xmas for multiple ordered I placed on net from various sites it caused be grief but that said better than being scammed

HSBC in my opinion were VERY quick on it with me so can't really have a go at them. They gave me loads of options too when my card was cloned and I had a replacement the next day

gordikin

...and post in the Consumer Rights forum?

TeacherCat

Sorry - completely new to the forums, so not sure where i shoulda been posting-feel free to redirect me-just wanted to post somewhere! Yeah, the woman who called me was from the, er, other place and didn't seem to speak particularly brilliant English (unfortunately I was running late to teach my next lesson and literally had to run away). Neither iTunes, nor HSBC seem to want to take any responsibility for helping me and neither of them had flagged up the transactions, which is just insane!

I'm actually on a mac, which reduces the risk of keyloggers, but I'll have a look just in case - nothing else seems to have been compromised and they didn't even change my password, so looks like it was a smash and grab.

Either way, I feel like I'm going round in circles when this seems like such an open and shut case to me!

TeacherCat

BTW thanks for all your replies, I've been getting so stressed out all day about what to do, so anything anyone can say/suggest is a huge relief to me!

savemoney

I assume know one had access to your mac, its ways best to log off and store password safety too

TeacherCat

Yeah no one has access to my laptop and it's password protected in any case