Account emptied, bank not much help

krisskross

On Saturday my daughter had her debit card declined in Tesco.....she was trying to spend £40. Luckily her husband was with her and he paid for the shopping. She then went to the ATM to get money to repay him, unfortunately it said "go away, you haven't any money"
Now she knew that on Tuesday night there had been £2000 in her account and she has a £500 overdraft facility......so someone had been busy spending.
On accessing her online banking it was obvious where the cash had gone, in one day alone there had been 18 cash withdrawals from ATMs in Bulgaria totalling almost £1000.
She contacted the fraud arm of Lloyds to get her card cancelled, and today made a personal trip to the bank. they said they would increase her overdraft to £2000 but of course she would be liable for the charges!
Now where does she stand on this? She still has the card in her possession, is in debt to the tune of approx £3000, and the bank are frankly unhelpful. And of course she has no money, although she now has a huge overdraft she has no card to get any money out or to pay for things
The other question that springs to mind is what sort of security do they have to allow the card to be used so many times ? So far there are 27 ATM withdrawals, all in Bulgaria. do banks not have a limit on either the number of transactions or the amount allowed in a 24 hour period.
Chris

jellyhead

sorry no advice, just wanted to express my disgust on your daughter's behalf! this situation really is appalling! the fact that she still has the card in her possession is very suspicious, i suppose it must have been copied somehow by one of those cashpoint things we hear about, getting her PIN number at the same time. i thought there was a limit to how much cash can be withdrawn in a day though?? can't believe how unhelpful the bank are being!

worldtraveller

Chris, basically, i[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]f someone else uses your card before you tell your card issuer it has been lost or stolen or that someone else knows your Personal Identification Number (PIN), the most you will have to pay, in theory, is £50. [/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In practice the bank or building society will usually refund the full amount lost. But if the cardholder were negligent, for example, by keeping their PIN with their card, they would have to meet all the losses.[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]If your card is used fraudulently but you still have the card in your possession you will not be liable to pay for any part of the losses. You would probably still have your card in your possession if you are a victim of card-not-present fraud or counterfeit skimming[/font]

The following link should be useful:

http://www.cardwatch.org.uk

jockettuk

dont know if this will help but my friend had her statement in and found out that some transactions were on there that shouldnt be.. total under £200 it turned out that when she used her card and cheque for a chinese takeaway the driver noted the security number at the back and had phoned for credit on mobiles. this was noted as her statement came not long after this first happened so was stopped.. it was also with lloyds .. she contacted them and also the police and the bank refunded her money. the police were still involved in the matter against the driver.. get your daughter to contact the bank again but this time tell them you have involved the police as you dont think they are being helpful..

sunflower_2

jockettuk wrote:

dont know if this will help but my friend had her statement in and found out that some transactions were on there that shouldnt be.. total under £200 it turned out that when she used her card and cheque for a chinese takeaway the driver noted the security number at the back and had phoned for credit on mobiles. this was noted as her statement came not long after this first happened so was stopped.. it was also with lloyds .. she contacted them and also the police and the bank refunded her money. the police were still involved in the matter against the driver.. get your daughter to contact the bank again but this time tell them you have involved the police as you dont think they are being helpful..

how did they find out it was the delivery driver ?

just being a sticky beak...

Jay-Jay_4

Sorry I'm not that well up on this but she should contact the fraud department at her bank again and ask if she needs a crime reference number from the police.

Meanwhile, she needs to COMPLAIN to the Customer Care Team at her bank by telephone. Telephone is better than face to face as they have very strict deadlines on how long it takes them to resolve complaints. It's important that she uses the word 'complaint' as otherwise it may be recorded as a 'query'.

During the call she should throw in a reference to the BANKING CODE OF PRACTICE and the FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN.

This should get her some way to towards resolving this horrible situation.

krisskross

She has contacted the police and has a crime reference number. however apparently she cannot make a formal complaint, the bank have to do that. My daughter said the police officer was really sympathetic, rather more than the bank were. Well tomorrow is another day and if she can borrow some money to pay the car parking fees she will go back to the bank!
Thanks for the help and advice
Chris

Jay-Jay_4

I really urge you to phone the bank as well as/instead of going into the branch. They record much more detail over the phone and it is under the Banking Code of Practice for them to resolve it within a set time-scale whereas in the brach they do not have to write anything down if they don't feel it necessary.

Write down the date and time that she phones and take the person name. The call centre staff are the first point of call but the Customer Care Team are the ones who will take some responsibility for the complaint. After that they may refer to a customer service centre and then a fraud team/team manager to get it sorted but your daughter must push for a response/resolution within 48 hrs.

jockettuk

sunflower wrote:

how did they find out it was the delivery driver ?

just being a sticky beak...

They asked her when she had last used her card and it was between tescos and the chinese.. when they checked out the mobile numbers the idiot had credited his own phone .. and his wifes and a friends lol they reckon he would have credited half the towns mobiles if he had got time as apparantly you can only credit so much at any one time...

Swattie

Hi KrissKross

I'd escalate the matter to a director at their head office immediately

Try Michael E Fairey, Deputy Group Chief Executive
He is acting as interim group executive director, UK Retail Banking.

Head office number is :-020 7626 1500

Your daughter shouldn't need to talk to him directly, but if she gets through to a PA or assistant - she should explain she has a serious issue that both Fraud and customer service has failed to resolve and so she wants to escalalte it to the directors office.

Most large organisations have a team of 'trouble-shooters' that deal with problems that have been addressed directly to directors.

The other route is to post a registered letter to Michael Fairey directly at Head office
25 Gresham Street
London
EC2V 7HN

If she still has no joy she can contact the
Financial Ombudsman Service, South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SR. Tel: 0845 080 1800.

Hope this helps

krisskross

Thank you Swattie, she has gone this route now after 2 days of being promised phone calls that never materialised.
Now I know it is not really funny but I laughed.......when daughter was in the bank discussing how much overdraft she needed, her due direct debits were totted up, she naturally had utility payments , gas and electricity. The bank employee "helping" daughter suggested using the bank's services for the utilities and would she like a quote!! Just proves that unless you buy stuff from the banks they are not truly interested.
One thing I cannot understand is that the bank knows that there have now been approx 34 fraudulent withdrawals and 34 service charges to go with them but it is still going to take minimum 6 weeks for the money to be returned to it's rightful owner. I know it has to be investigated but 6 weeks?