Fraudulent transactions! :(

Yazmin_A

I was out of the country for 6weeks in january, i was still employed and was still recieveing 8 weeks worth of wages as i was getting paid twice when i was on holiday. The day i land, i need to withdraw money as i needed to add call time to my phone. But my card got declined. So i check my balance and i see that i have 180, which is strange because i should have had £1200 in my account.

So i phone barclays customer service. And they told me that 200 was taken out due to a credit card bill. and the rest was taken out due to two transactions, one of the amounts was for £400 to aa insurance, another is £200 for some other housing association. They are not mine as i live with parents and i dont have a car.

So they reported it and told me that they are going to investigate it and then refund me the money after the investugation. I would need to fill out the forms, and that it would take an average of a month to return my money, they would issue me with a new card. So a week later i withdraw some money and notice then i see my account balance had £900. i asked a friend who was currently working for a bank some advice and he says. It waqs probably an error due to the fact that they gave it back so soon. so i didnt do anything about it.

A month later, it happens again, apart from the fact that the transaction for aa was the same and the 200 was for british gas. i asked how could this be as i got a new card. so they told me, i would need to fill out the form otherwise they will take the money out of my bank again this will keep on happening. at the time i was in my branch ringing off of the customer phone, my personal banker said, bring it in to us, and we will fax it on your behalf, it will get there soon. So i fill out my forms, there were two papers to the form, but the last paper only has three lines of writing. I return the form back to the branch who faxes it for me.

Now a week later i check my balance. I have £130 pounds at 9.00 am. i go to work, go on my break, and my card gets declined. I check mybalance, i have nil to withdraw. I ring up barclays to be told they have redebittied the transactions made on my account. so my account is now £400 pounds overdrawn I asked why? because i didnt send all the paperwork, i told them it was faxed on my behalf, they said they recieved one page of the paperwork and not two. I said well i didnt fax it, a lady at my branch did. They said without the paper work they couldnt process the investigation and took the money for the payments.

I argued with them for a good hour explaining, my situation in the end speaking to four people who all told me the same thing. They cant do anything unless they have the full paperwork. They accept it wasnt my fault, but i explained to them, so if it isnt my fault why do i have to suffer for? i remember the contents of the page that is missing, and all it had was three lines of terms and conditions, there was nothing there that i had to fill out. So they said they will be sending me a new form, and in the mean time they cannot redebit my account with my money. I said so the paperwork will not reach me until tuesdday (due to the fact that its the royal wedding and we have bank holiday on monday) and then i will have to fill the form, fax it to u again, wait until you process it and complete your investigation and then debit my account, while i recieve bank charges, and i have no money until that day, which they cant put a date on? What am i going to do all that time??? They all said there is nothing they can do.

I feel absolutely disgusted by this level of service. The fact that there security is appalling, how can they let such transactions go through after i have reported them to be fraudulent, just because i didnt take it further initially doesnt mean it cant be declined. and now because of someone else's negligience and incompetence im having to suffer by having no money what so ever to survive on. I explained my situation and said what am i going to do to pay bills, there is nothing they can do. they are quick to take my money but not quick to give it back. So i have to suffer with late charges on my bills, plus interest.

So now that im getting paid on Friday 13th of may, im thinking that all my wages is going to be taken to cover the overdraft. I try and open another bank account with HSBC So all my wages go into that account. But they decline my application due to the fact that i have the fraudulent case going on. The lady tells me its prob the same everywhere you go because it was declined due to the credit rating which is probably because of the fraud.
I Ask my workplace if i could get a cheque instead of being paid directly into my account. But the cheques take a total of two weeks to process. I was late by a week and cheques can only be given on the pay day of the month. Ive come home to find two letters from barclays telling me they shall charge me a total of 48 pounds due to 6 guarenteed transactions (apparently a transaction may take two days after you have purchased it to be debited from the account and this had happened after the money had been taken out of my account)
So right now i have no other accounts and cannot open another account due to this fraud. I have no credit cards to use in the meantime. All i have in my purse is £1.50. And barclays have stil not given my money. I feel so upset that ive broken down into tears about this and am depressed. I have a 7 week old kitten that needs feeding and has vet services to pay. I owe so much money to people already because of this, and i cant borrow anymore because no one is prepared to give it anymore. I would ask my father. but hes struggling to run a house on a parttime job due to his illness. I have bills to pay and i need to basically survive, and barclays have done nothing but bring me grief. I am overdrawn by 400 pounds and everyday they are adding more and more charges with no outcome. Please someone is there anything i can do to get my money back.

tabby_cats_mum

Try and post again and make it more concise and I'm sure someone will be able to offer advice.

ALIBOBSY

As I read it whilst out of the country some transactions went through on the account which weren't the OP's she contacted the branch who issued a new card and put some kind of query on the transactions, then sent her forms to complete to confirm which were the dodgy ones.

Then (I assume because the transactions would be put on hold whilst the investigation was done) her account "available" balance jumped back up.
Instead of ringing the bank she asked a mate and between them they decided the bank had done a refund and so she didn't bother with the forms.

Without the forms the bank lifted the hold and the transactions reappeared. The OP went to a branch and completed the forms there and had them faxed, but one page didn'#t go through correctly and neither the bank nor OP chased up.
A WEEK later the held transactions again reappeared (not full forms recieved by the fraud dept). Unfortunately for the OP by this stage it was the bank hol weekend so the bank was shut till the tues.

However it is now the Friday after the bank holiday weekend and the OP is stuck without any money. I assume the Op was in on Tues filling the forms in and not leaving the branch until she got confirmation that the right department had the forms? I certainly would have done.

The bank have cocked up, but the OP should have filled the first lot of forms in and chased up more during the process.

Op have you now filled in the forms and do they have them?
You need to get into a branch asap (will be monday now I suppose). You want to get this pushed through and the charges refunded.

They should be able to sort this prior to your next payment, but you will need to chase them, all the banks are like this you have to be on top of things all the way.

good luck

ali x

Having reraed this it has been going on since January so why did the OP take so long to chase up?

Banks on the whole are rubbish money grabbing corporate monsters, but you need to chase up and not just leave things like this.

You also want to check your credit file once the payments are sorted to ensure no ID fraud has gone on, and to ensure any markers from the bank relating to this problem are removed.

DeeMarie89

Extract from their T's and C's, quote this to them p'raps?

"11. OUR LIABILITY TO YOU AND YOUR LIABILITY TO US
Unauthorised Payments
11.1 Subject to condition 11.2, if you confirm to us that a payment from your account was not authorised in accordance with the conditions of our agreement, we will immediately refund the amount deducted and return your account to the position it would have been in if the unauthorised payment had not taken place....."

pmduk

I'd start the formal complaints procedure. If your branch made a mistake faxing the forms over why are you being penalised for it?

Yazmin_A

I have been chasing this up the past week. Everyday going to the branch, asking them when will my money be back. All the ladies behind the counter say to me is you need to speak to the fraud dept. I speak to the fraud dept. The answer is investigation ongoing.

I shall quote the paragraph in the terms and conditions kindly given by deemarie89

Pmduk - i know! I told them that, they said they contacted me! I have changed my home number since i made that account (which was 14years ago) but on the fraud form it says my current mobile number and house number and address. so they couldve contacted me using those details that were written on the form. I recieved no letter in the post, no phone call. No nothing to be told that all the paperwork wasnt recieved.

Plus i also want to know i applied for an account online for halifax, i clicked the basic account icon, and i was given a sort code and account number after the whole process. I assumed i would be sent a letter telling me if i would be approved, like Lloyds tsb has told me they will do. Why was it so easy for?

DeeMarie89

Yazmin_A wrote: »

Plus i also want to know i applied for an account online for halifax, i clicked the basic account icon, and i was given a sort code and account number after the whole process. I assumed i would be sent a letter telling me if i would be approved, like Lloyds tsb has told me they will do. Why was it so easy for?

You'll find that although you have been allocated an account number an sort code, Halifax will send you a letter out detailing their ID requirements, and you will need to verify your identity before the account will become active and before they will issue you with a debit card.

Yazmin_A

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Having reraed this it has been going on since January so why did the OP take so long to chase up?

Its been going on since february the 18th, as that was the day i landed. The money was refunded the following week, a month later it happened again.

I assumed it was due to card details, and not the whole account itself. And this has never happened in my entire history of having a bank account.

I also didnt know of guarenteed transactions. My experience with my debit card is is that if i dont have the available funds in my account then it would decline the transaction. my card has always declined even for items under a fiver when ive tried using it close to pay day. So why let 600worth of transactions go through??

And i asked the person at the time was it an direct debit, and she said there are no direct debits on your account at all. So how could it go through again? it wasnt the same transactions as before, as both times, the aa transactions were both for different amounts, and the first transaction was payment to a housing association or something and th next time it was british gas. So thats why i know it wasnt due to the forms not being filled.

pmduk

Write them a letter headed formal complaint and send it to the address here. Make sure you keep copies of all correspondence. If after 8 weeks the matter is still unresolved you can escalate the matter to the financial ombudsman.