Money taken from my bank account

matjo

Hi, I am new here, so hope somebody can shed some light on a query.

I logged into my internet banking yesterday and was £500 adrift. I rang the bank (Lloyds TSB) and they have basically said that there was a debit card transaction that went through on 24 August for £500, I said that I had not authorised a payment of that amount, and they are now saying that they have to wait until it passes through the system and from my account before they can do anything.

There are a couple of companies that have my bank card details for one reason and another and if one of these companies has used it without my knowing is this classed as fraud? The bank have said that they will need to look at the entry and then decide if it is fraud!

The woman on the fraud phone line at Lloyds said that a transaction had gone through with just the letter "t" and she knew from another customer that it may potentially be Lowell. I have had correspondence from Lowell about a debt they have brought but I have never ever passed them my debit card details and neither to the company that owned the original debt, in fact I had a completely different bank account then.

I know for a fact that I did not authorise that transaction and nobody else within my household would have done either.

My main concern is that if they don't consider it fraud, where does that leave me, £500 out of pocket I suppose.

If anybody can confirm if this scenario is fraud that would be helpful.

Thank you.

Lensman_2

Highly unlikely that it is fraud. Much more likely that someone you have given your card details to have abused a continuous payment authority.

Are you sure that this is not a legitimate payment? The following advice could have serious implications if it is...

If you are sure it is not, and assuming it is an abuse of a payment authority then...

You should wait for the transaction to clear so that the details become available. Once they are you should write to the bank to make them cancel the authority that allowed the payment. You have a clear, unambiguous legal right to cancel a payment authority, no matter what they say about it having to be done with the alleged creditor.

Banks are catching up with your rights on this so you may need to persist and even raise an official complaint to get it to stick. Some good info from Money Box (BBC) below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17870704

Is it a Visa Debitcard? If so you can (and should) do a chargeback once it has cleared. Info below:
http://whatconsumer.co.uk/visa-debit-chargeback/