Desperately need help with bank fraud

originalkitten

Hi there.

I have no idea if I have the right forum so please forgive me if I havent. THis is a bit long winded so again please bear with me.

On 19 January my itunes account was hacked and the hacker wiped my bank account out taking £300. I bank with Barclays. I was devastated as I am a single mum who is sick - I have Lupus, Fibromyalgia and CRPS. I have 2 boys who are 15 and 12 and my youngest is showing signs of my illness (Reason why I have told you this will become aparant in a wee while). I watch every single penny that goes in and out of my account, have secure passwords and basically am computer and internet savvy so you can imagine the impact of having this money stolen from me had on our family, especially as I had hospital appointments the following week and taxis to and from the hospitals cost me £60 round trip as I live too far away for ambulances. I was in Tescos when I found out after having taken my son to Ormskirk hospital for his appointment. When the actual fraud happened I was either at the hospital or in the taxi coming home from the hospital. The hacker made 30 x £10 transactions in 1 minute.

I contacted the bank from Tescos as at first I was like eh I know I had funds in my account. Cutting long story short they said they would temp refund the money and would cancel my old card. They took over 10 days to refund the money (Imagine if I owed them the money! ) and even though my own branch was helpful in communicating with them Barclays refused to acknowledge that every penny of that money was already spent and that I had no money at all until I got my next payment and that I needed that money as of yesterday.

Anyway I received a letter asking me to fill in what were fraudlent transactions which I did and eventually the money came back in my account. I was then sent another letter about a week later from an asian lady asking me to contact her via a direct line which I did. This was to the fraud ctr which was an indian call center and not only did the lady not understand what I was talking about when I was telling her I was on benefits but they couldnt actually put me through to the woman on the letter as they did not have that facility but assured me that everything was just being investigated. She asked me though if I dealt with itunes and had I dealt with them since. I explained I had since closed my original account with them and opened up another one because I need it for my phone. Anyway I missed a phone call from someone so I phoned up and asked what it was about to be told my case had gone to a higher investigation to a complex case dept.

Everyday this has happened I check my balance b4 I go to the store. My health condition has affected my brain and I have white spots on it and can forget what Im talking about or where I am and get very flustered if things dont go to plan so since this happened I made sure to check funds. I checked them Friday to see it was ok. Yest I went out to the village cause I needed to get my son some new pyjamas because he has to go into hospital for 2 weeks for tests. I was taking him out as a "come on sweetheart lets go out and choose your jammies " trip so he can see it as an adventure rather than going through tests. It was the only morning I didnt check online b4 I went out but went to the ATM instead. I saw I was £33 overdrawn and went sick. I thought how on earth could this be. I had £40 cash on me so got the essential food I needed and went straight to my mums as I was a blubbering wreck.

I phoned Barclays and just broke down hysterical when they told me that Barclays have paid itunes. (I forgot to mention I reported it to the police but they told me that I Just had to tell the bank and they dont deal with things like this and I wrote to itunes who told me there was nothing they could do!). After Barclays cutting me off three times when I was on hold I eventually got put through to someone who wasnt in an asian call ctr and was in debit card dept. She was very abrupt and went to check and came back and was very strange with me. Told me a letter has gone out to me telling me my account is being investigated by a higher dept and that I will get a call within ten days. I explained that basically means my son cant go into hospital for tests and I wont be able to pay my bills and my kids wont be able to eat. She basically said there was nothing she could or would do because it had gone to a higher dept. She was very evasive and failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. I started to cry and she told me she couldnt talk to me while I was crying and put the phone down on me.

In desperation I called The Sun and the newsguy said someone would contact me and yet again Ive been let down by someone.

Im at the end of my tether. What are my rights regarding this?Where do I go from here. I just seem to be getting put through to indian call ctrs who dont have a clue of our day to day running of things and just tell me its gone to a higher place.

Are Barclays allowed to take this money out of my account without giving me a warning? I have NEVER been overdrawn in my account and this is the first time and now I will have charges on my account that I cannot afford to pay. If they had given notice I could have either explained or at least put money in so I wouldnt be overdrawn (I couldnt have done this but you get my point).

Can someone help me as I am making myself even more ill worrying. I have enough to worry about with my 12 year old being so poorly and I feel so violated that someone has done this to me. Barclays have offered no aftercare or support. I feel so let down by them Im going to move bank accounts. They wouldnt even lend me money when this first happened to tide me through until the money was refunded!

Oh I forgot to mention. The week b4 xmas I ordered my son a pair of tracksuit bottoms in the sale for £19.99 (£24.99) with delivery from JD Sports. They stopped my transaction because.....wait for it...."suspicious activity because of excessive spending"....I laughed and said it's a week b4 xmas of course people excessive spend...but was grateful they did the check.

Why on earth didn't barclays pick up that 30x £10 transactions in one minute were not suspicious? Why on earth wasnt my card stopped? It's humanely impossible for a person to do 30 x £10 transactions in 1 min. It takes at least 1 min for the payment screen to go through! So seeing this should have rung alarm bells.

Anyway thank you in advance for any help you can give me and I really am grateful to you all.

originalkitten

Can't anyone help me. I am desperate here and noone seems to be able to help. I've not stopped crying all day. Have written to Dominic littlewood and also the financial ombudsman. When I say I have no money because of this I am serious. I literally hve £7 to last me until a week on Thursday.

All I want to know is where do I stand and what do I do.

Pls help me. I'm begging you.

bendix

What is there people can say? It's an unfortunate story, but the fact that 160 people have read your post and not replied suggests there is no easy fix.

People can feel sympathy, but at the end of the day this sort of thing happens.

I have no practical suggestions to make.

originalkitten

This is very true but I was perhaps hoping that someone could advise me of where I stand regarding my rights and the fact Barclays have failed to protect my money. Ty.

bendix

With the best will in the world, I can't see how Barclays are responsible. Sites get hacked all the time. If the banks protected everyone from this, where does it end.

It's hard I know, but it is what it is.

Incyder

Dom Littlewood, The Sun, The Ombudsman, good start.

I think you need to get a message to Esther Rantzen, Angela Rippon, Jimmy White, Lord Brocket, Peter Andre and Max Clifford

bendix

Incyder wrote: »

Dom Littlewood, The Sun, The Ombudsman, good start.

I think you need to get a message to Esther Rantzen, Angela Rippon, Jimmy White, Lord Brocket, Peter Andre and Max Clifford.

And people call me callous . . .

originalkitten

Barclays are responsible because they did Not put a stop on my card because of suspicious activity. They've done this before even over 59p purchase yet when something is blatantly extreme they fail to act. Even the cashiers in my local branch have questioned that dept actions. If what you say is the case why have the dept at all? And why on earth do I bother putting my money in a bank at all if any criminal can just help themselves and people say the bank isn't responsible.

bendix

And yet, in law, originalkitten (and I know what I'm talking about here), they're not responsible whether you like it or not.

You could argue they might have a moral responsibility - that's a different discussion altogether and I dont have suggestions as to how you will get them to accept the moral responsibility which, if they concede, they will do for PR reasons and nothing else, but they have no legal responsibility.

originalkitten

Wow thank you so much for your helpful post there. I'll make sure to tell that to my children when they are hungry and sitting in the dark because all our money has been stolen and when my 12 ur old is screaming out in pain because he has a muscle wasting disease on his legs and we can't go in for tests because all my money has been stolen and all people can do is make what they think is a funny sarcastic post.

Don't you think the reason I wrote to those is because in desperate. It's ok I won't bother if I have a problem in the future.

You give Martin Lewis a bad name. I read through the posts here and was v nervous about posting because I had seen the trolling that had gone on but thought you would be helpful because of the severity of the matter but how wrong was I. I know what website not to go to in future if I have a financial question again.

bendix

There's no point getting antsy because people can't help you. It's a difficult situation.

I am merely stating the simple fact: Barclays are under no legal obligation.

Would you prefer it if I said they were obliged to refund the money to make you feel temporarily happier (until you went to the branch to be told it wasnt true)?

Like I said, they may have a moral obligation. I can't comment on that, and whether or not you will get relief will depend how you raise it with them. Taking an aggressive tone like you have above will guarantee you won't succeed.