Desperately need help with bank fraud

originalkitten

Bendix that is the type of information I was looking for. I dont know the laws regarding banking. I used to work in finance years ago but sadly I didn't learn the laws re: theft from your bank account. I think I will close my bank account and start paying for things over the counter and if I want to buy off the Internet buy a prepaid card as it seems there really is no point to having a bank account at all.

originalkitten

Bendix my "antsy " reply wasnt to you. It was to the other poster who said I should write to peter Andre. That type if reply is v unhelpful.

As u can see I thanked you for your reply. I appreciate it and can assure you that I am fR from antsy and would not have a temper tantrum if someone didn't give a reply or a reply I didn't like.

All I want to know where do i stand. £300 may not seem a lot of money to you but to me it's food, taxis to alder hey and my gas and elec bill. All Other bills are due and I cannot pay them and am going to get bad mark on my credit rating though that is the least of my worries.

bendix

To be honest, someone's wisecrack about The Sun et al, might not be stupid. You often see situations like yours discussed in those 'readers help' columns on the financial pages and if the case is taken up by the journalist, the bank usually concedes for PR purposes, even when they have no legal obligation.

bendix

originalkitten wrote: »

Bendix my "antsy " reply wasnt to you. It was to the other poster who said I should write to peter Andre. That type if reply is v unhelpful.

As u can see I thanked you for your reply. I appreciate it and can assure you that I am fR from antsy and would not have a temper tantrum if someone didn't give a reply or a reply I didn't like.

All I want to know where do i stand. £300 may not seem a lot of money to you but to me it's food, taxis to alder hey and my gas and elec bill. All Other bills are due and I cannot pay them and am going to get bad mark on my credit rating though that is the least of my worries.

My apologies. I thought it referred to my posts.

originalkitten

I was sobbing down the phone to barclays. I certainly wasn't aggressive. And my post wasn't aggressive either. It was stating facts through tears of worry and frustration. I'm that worried I've vomited twice. It's horrible not having any money AT ALL and everyone starts jumping on you as if you're the o e that's in the wrong here.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother at all. I'm trying to find a solution so I can feed my children. Is that so bad ?

originalkitten

And I did ring the sun and they said they would call and they haven't.

jennikitten

If I were in your position, selling my iPhone would be the first step.

Incyder

ok, sensible now.

Shut your itunes account, you are not the first to have lost a lot there.
Can someone in your financial poition afford itunes anyway, No. Its a luxury.
Register for spotify if you want to listen to free music.

I don't do any card transactions on the net as I dont like the risk. The more you do the more the risk goes up. Trust no-one. I do 99+ % of all my transactions in cash.

Buy a safe and keep your ready cash in there rather than a bank, I do. You get no interest anyway so why bother.

welshmoneylover

originalkitten wrote: »

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.

Can't you borrow any money from relatives or from the children's father/grandparents if things are this bad. Failing that, you can always sell some gold or your iphone down cash converters.

epsilondraconis

Hi OP, as bendix has said, there is no easy resolution to this. You will need to wait for the bank to fully investigate it and then give you thir decision. Once you receive that, you can obviously choose to go to the FSA etc.

In the mean-time, it may be worth investigating the possibility of getting a crisis loan from the benefits people. Unfortunately I know nothing at all about it. Below is a link; however, it may be worth you posting on the benefits board about how to get a crisis loan.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/On_a_low_income/DG_10018856

Hope all works out for you.