Wonga and ID theft

meer53

It's standard procedure for a bank to offer you an increase in your overdraft to help you whilst the investigation is ongoing, it should be offered free of charge. Unfortunately, transactions to Wonga and other PDL companies aren't unusual anymore, and if funds are available in an account, then there may not be any suspicions, although i would think £2000 should have triggered some sort of check. Was it one amount of £2000 ? Or lots of smaller debits ?

Kimou

RobertoMoir wrote: »

You always have rights. I can actually see why they might be careful about situations like this (read below for what I think might be happening) but being "in finance" doesn't make any company into some mighty morphing power ranger of being able to take money from anyone they want with no justification.

The justification comes from the fraudster satisfying the criteria I suppose.

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Without knowing what was said in the phonecall and how it was said, we're all shooting in the dark but I wonder if this is what happened...

It was more of a courtesy call updating me on his progress and an informal answer to my query over the 'potential' of me losing out completely. But he definately did say that the rules are different with the finance companies. I wouldn't have believed it so unless he told me.

RobertoMoir wrote: »

... we get a lot of people here who take out PDLs then (for whatever reason) can't pay on the agreed date. These people are then often surprised and upset to find that the PDL company can (and does!) hoover their account out of as much funds as possible to get as much of their debt back. These people often complain here that "they've got no right to do that, now I have no money to live on" without realising that they've signed over to the PDL the right to do exactly that as part of their original agreement with them...

... so anyhoo, where I'm going with this, is that I wonder if the bank advisor thought you were in that situation, or if they're instructed to be careful about what they say to people in case that turns out to be the situation.

Ah, I see. Yes, that would make sense. They did ensure they looked at my account for the past year to check for dealings- procedure, I guess. But I haven't and they confirmed it so. I would agree entirely with the latter part of your sentence, though. It would seem the more prudent.

RobertoMoir wrote: »

I would write to them at this point, spelling out absolutely clearly that you've got no connection, no association at all with the PDL company and see what sort of reply you get.

You do also need to consider something - if the debt was taken from your bank card - clearly someone has your bank card number who should not have it. I'd phone the bank to sort out this particular issue as a separate thing from the wonga problem, if you haven't already.

Ok, I'll consider the written option after I've given Wonga a chance to react. I'm informed that if not by close of business today, then for sure tomorrow they will contact me, although them contacting the bank may take longer.
My card has been cancelled from the first day.

Kimou

iaintw wrote: »

if you been a victim of fraud you should report it to police straight away and also your bank.
if you got CCP or other specialist organistian the best thing is to ring them up.

Yep, I done that today. An unhelpful Wonga rep asked me if I have a crime reference and said they won't even talk to me without one then hung up.

Kimou

Tight_as_a_Drum wrote: »

Why on earth are PDL companies allowed to pay the loan into one account and take repayments from another? Surely that's just open to abuse.

Again, if it hadn't happened to me I wouldn't have believed it possible. It conveniently removes another obstacle for the fraudster.

Kimou

blacksta wrote: »

Hope this is sorted asap - How can one protect his or her bank account details

Thanks, I hope so too. I don'tthink you can completely protect it. The banks would rather claim insurance for losses than overhaul their security, and the onus seems to be on their customers.

Kimou

meer53 wrote: »

It's standard procedure for a bank to offer you an increase in your overdraft to help you whilst the investigation is ongoing, it should be offered free of charge. Unfortunately, transactions to Wonga and other PDL companies aren't unusual anymore, and if funds are available in an account, then there may not be any suspicions, although i would think £2000 should have triggered some sort of check. Was it one amount of £2000 ? Or lots of smaller debits ?

It was 4 payments between £300 and £500. Just under £2000. Intitially I thought it was over £2000 due to my account balance reading, but it seems I'm fortunate. Not!

I do appreciate that the bank is following procedure. And Wonga are too. They aren't the villains here. Timescale makes one anxious when dealing with such a large figure.

gillian3

Hey, I was a customer with them and made a complaint a few weeks ago and a guy contacted me... managed to get everything sorted pretty quick. The email address i used was [EMAIL="Tarik.abdellah@wonga.com"]Tarik.abdellah@wonga.com[/EMAIL] Give that a go and see what happens.. x best of luck xx :T

Apples2

Are you keeping all this documented?

You've already had a stark warning you may not get the money back so start building your pile of evidence. Get all this in writing, make a formal complaint as a starting point.
The risk is that this will go so far and reach a dead end leaving you back to square one, protect yourself against it.

It isn't difficult for wonga to investigate. They know where your money came from and they know which account it went into to pay off.
They won't tell you anything due to data protection so will never get to the bottom of it, it will all be anecdotal messages over the phone, nothing tangible.

It must be immensely frustrating waiting for that, "We'll call you back sir" reply, hardly ever materialises. Add to that the department runaround dealing with several employees and you lose track of progress (or lack of). You need a single point of contact to deal with it and everything goes through the single contact.
That isn't likely, the next best thing is a paper trail.

meer53

Kimou wrote: »

It was 4 payments between £300 and £500. Just under £2000. Intitially I thought it was over £2000 due to my account balance reading, but it seems I'm fortunate. Not!

I do appreciate that the bank is following procedure. And Wonga are too. They aren't the villains here. Timescale makes one anxious when dealing with such a large figure.

You're quite right, people have procedures to follow and you are in the hands of your bank at the moment. It's no good contacting Wonga, your bank will be doing this. From what you've said you should be refunded soon. Don't forget to make sure that any charges are refunded by your bank too.

RobertoMoir

Don't let the fact that Wonga have been victims of this fraudster distract you from the fact that you've been a victim of Wonga taking money out of your account without authorisation. Now you're probably thinking "Of course I'm not distracted. I've lost a lot of money here!" - possibly with more swearing at me for making an obvious statement or at wonga or the fraudster at this point, depending on how you like to do things.

But what I'm saying here is in reply to your "they aren't the villains here" comment. There are two separate issues here. You should co-operate with the investigation into the fraudster as much as possible and appropriate, but I would be getting that crime number from the police, and making the point to both my bank and to Wonga that you consider their problem with the fraudster and their unauthorised withdrawal from your account to be separate issues.

This is one of the reasons I suggested putting things in writing (or at least, email). Its easier to state everything you need to say that way without getting distracted or sidetracked by the person you are speaking to, and you will have a better record of every thing said by all three parties, which I suspect is something you'll be glad for in the long run.