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Unjustly accused of fraud by Lloyds TSB
rwgd
Posts: 8 Forumite
My girlfriend and I have had the afternoon from Hell that I would like to share with the forum in the hope that someone may have some useful advice on what to do next...
This afternoon my girlfriend logged onto her online banking and was presented with a message saying that her account had been suspended. After phoning the bank and being directed to the fraud department, the member of staff told her that her account had been closed due to fraudulent activity. She was told that they had prevented two fraudulent payments from being made INTO her account. The person then questioned her about the origin and nature of these transactions, to which my girlfriend explained she had absolutely no idea. The person proceeded to accuse her of willingly participating in fraud on the basis that if she couldn't explain the transactions, then she must have intentionally divulged her bank account details to someone and volunteered to act as a 'third party' in fraud. The operator refused to give any more information regarding the supposed 'fraudulent transactions' in question and the conversation ended with her being told that her account would be closed. Throughout the conversation, the member of the department had been nothing but rude, condescending and ignorant and my girlfriend was understandably extremely shocked, distressed and upset by this.
Twenty minutes or so later, she was called again by the same person and told that her account had been re-opened, but warned that if this happened again then her account would be closed permanently. Once again, this news was delivered in a cold and condemning manner with absolutely no consideration to that the fact that the customer may just in fact be the innocent party in all of this. In essence, she had been 'told off but given one more chance'.
At this point I received a phone call from one very upset girlfriend and was forced to leave work to give her a lift to our local branch in town to explain the situation and see if we could get to the bottom of it.
The lady at the bank service desk was extremely helpful and sympathetic to her situation and in fact couldn't believe that my girlfriend had been dealt with in such a manner. She contacted the fraud department to investigate, and managed to divulge the sender and amounts relating to the fraudulent deposits. The sender was an individual that neither of us had ever heard of and the amounts made no sense to us either (they weren't massive, both under £500).
At this point, the fraud department offered to speak to my girlfriend again, so the service desk employee handed the phone over. Whilst she was now speaking to a different member of the department to the one that she had originally dealt with, the message was exactly the same: if more fraudulent activity appears on the account, it will be closed. Furthermore, they informed her that they would communicate to other banks to prevent her setting up a new account. My girlfriend protested that since she had absolutely no control whatsoever over the original transactions that were attempted, she certainly couldn't prevent it from happening again. She then said that she would close her account and move to another bank, to which she was given the reply "Okay, go ahead". Once again, the language and tone was rude and without compassion.
By this time, a couple of other members of staff had overheard what was going on and had come over to try and help - all were voicing their disbelief at the way in which she had been treated. At this point, the service desk employee fully agreed that the best thing would be for her to just close her account as soon as possible and move to another bank. Another member of staff helpfully retrieved the address to send a written complaint to and encouraged us to take it as far as we could. A third employee recounted a very similar experience that he had been through with another customer and was sympathetic. All in all, the in-branch staff were fantastic, but it was clear from their comments that there was a sense of distaste towards the fraud department.
After taking some much needed time to recover and gather our thoughts on this, we've decided to take a couple of actions:
1) Write a written letter of complaint to Lloyds stating how the fraud department have victimised and intimidated an innocent and loyal (35 years) customer of theirs without any proof whatsoever that she was willingly involved. We are going to apply to have transcripts of the relevant conversations sent to us to use as proof in our case.
2) Contact the Financial Ombudsman Service and open a case with them.
I welcome anyone to offer additional advice on what else we may be able to do. We have been made to feel so helpless throughout this ordeal.
There are simply no words to describe how angry, disappointed and upset we are at the way Lloyds have treated my girlfriend throughout the course of this afternoon. I find it absolutely sickening and disgraceful that, despite the ever downward spiraling reputation of banks at the moment, they think it is acceptable to speak to their customers in a "guilty until proven innocent" manner. I'm certain that almost every member of public wants nothing more than to help tackle banking fraud, but the way in which this incident has been handled has caused far more damage than good. In this particular case, Lloyds has lost a loyal customer of 35 years and caused an irreparable amount of personal distress over a single telephone call that anyone would agree should have been handled far differently.
Ultimately, the fact that someone may be accused by their own bank of participating in fraud simply because criminals have chosen their bank account as the target of a fraudulent transaction is wrong and unjust. I fully understand the need for procedures to be in place to deal with these situations, but when will banks learn to respect their customers and invest their efforts into tackling the underlying causes of fraud instead of deflecting their own responsibilities onto them in the event of a crisis?
This afternoon my girlfriend logged onto her online banking and was presented with a message saying that her account had been suspended. After phoning the bank and being directed to the fraud department, the member of staff told her that her account had been closed due to fraudulent activity. She was told that they had prevented two fraudulent payments from being made INTO her account. The person then questioned her about the origin and nature of these transactions, to which my girlfriend explained she had absolutely no idea. The person proceeded to accuse her of willingly participating in fraud on the basis that if she couldn't explain the transactions, then she must have intentionally divulged her bank account details to someone and volunteered to act as a 'third party' in fraud. The operator refused to give any more information regarding the supposed 'fraudulent transactions' in question and the conversation ended with her being told that her account would be closed. Throughout the conversation, the member of the department had been nothing but rude, condescending and ignorant and my girlfriend was understandably extremely shocked, distressed and upset by this.
Twenty minutes or so later, she was called again by the same person and told that her account had been re-opened, but warned that if this happened again then her account would be closed permanently. Once again, this news was delivered in a cold and condemning manner with absolutely no consideration to that the fact that the customer may just in fact be the innocent party in all of this. In essence, she had been 'told off but given one more chance'.
At this point I received a phone call from one very upset girlfriend and was forced to leave work to give her a lift to our local branch in town to explain the situation and see if we could get to the bottom of it.
The lady at the bank service desk was extremely helpful and sympathetic to her situation and in fact couldn't believe that my girlfriend had been dealt with in such a manner. She contacted the fraud department to investigate, and managed to divulge the sender and amounts relating to the fraudulent deposits. The sender was an individual that neither of us had ever heard of and the amounts made no sense to us either (they weren't massive, both under £500).
At this point, the fraud department offered to speak to my girlfriend again, so the service desk employee handed the phone over. Whilst she was now speaking to a different member of the department to the one that she had originally dealt with, the message was exactly the same: if more fraudulent activity appears on the account, it will be closed. Furthermore, they informed her that they would communicate to other banks to prevent her setting up a new account. My girlfriend protested that since she had absolutely no control whatsoever over the original transactions that were attempted, she certainly couldn't prevent it from happening again. She then said that she would close her account and move to another bank, to which she was given the reply "Okay, go ahead". Once again, the language and tone was rude and without compassion.
By this time, a couple of other members of staff had overheard what was going on and had come over to try and help - all were voicing their disbelief at the way in which she had been treated. At this point, the service desk employee fully agreed that the best thing would be for her to just close her account as soon as possible and move to another bank. Another member of staff helpfully retrieved the address to send a written complaint to and encouraged us to take it as far as we could. A third employee recounted a very similar experience that he had been through with another customer and was sympathetic. All in all, the in-branch staff were fantastic, but it was clear from their comments that there was a sense of distaste towards the fraud department.
After taking some much needed time to recover and gather our thoughts on this, we've decided to take a couple of actions:
1) Write a written letter of complaint to Lloyds stating how the fraud department have victimised and intimidated an innocent and loyal (35 years) customer of theirs without any proof whatsoever that she was willingly involved. We are going to apply to have transcripts of the relevant conversations sent to us to use as proof in our case.
2) Contact the Financial Ombudsman Service and open a case with them.
I welcome anyone to offer additional advice on what else we may be able to do. We have been made to feel so helpless throughout this ordeal.
There are simply no words to describe how angry, disappointed and upset we are at the way Lloyds have treated my girlfriend throughout the course of this afternoon. I find it absolutely sickening and disgraceful that, despite the ever downward spiraling reputation of banks at the moment, they think it is acceptable to speak to their customers in a "guilty until proven innocent" manner. I'm certain that almost every member of public wants nothing more than to help tackle banking fraud, but the way in which this incident has been handled has caused far more damage than good. In this particular case, Lloyds has lost a loyal customer of 35 years and caused an irreparable amount of personal distress over a single telephone call that anyone would agree should have been handled far differently.
Ultimately, the fact that someone may be accused by their own bank of participating in fraud simply because criminals have chosen their bank account as the target of a fraudulent transaction is wrong and unjust. I fully understand the need for procedures to be in place to deal with these situations, but when will banks learn to respect their customers and invest their efforts into tackling the underlying causes of fraud instead of deflecting their own responsibilities onto them in the event of a crisis?
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Comments
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Now where is it that I've read this before ? Hmmm?0
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I don't know - where? Sorry, I don't understand your point.0
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P.S I cant be bothered reading all that, when you come to a forum you give a brief description on what happend not a full transcript.
Maybe you do, but that's your choice. Similarly, when I come to a forum, I don't post pointless and unhelpful responses. It looks like we both take different views on both points
P.S. I would give a more full account of why I think you're wrong, but instead that was just a brief description to appease you.
Is my sadistic sarcasm satisfactory?0 -
1) You can't ask for transcripts outside of the data protection act.
2) The FOS are not interested until LTSB have stated your complaint is closed. Any attempts to complain before hand will either be ignored, or a letter reply to the fact of "complain to the bank, not us".0 -
Maybe you do, but that's your choice. Similarly, when I come to a forum, I don't post pointless and unhelpful responses. It looks like we both take different views on both points
P.S. I would give a more full account of why I think you're wrong, but instead that was just a brief description to appease you.
Is my sadistic sarcasm satisfactory?
Well on a forum you post a brief description, then other people start to respond by asking more questions on the issue then you respond with more answers.
I am sure others wont read all of that to, gets boring.
If you find my post pointless, Thats your problem.0 -
Thank you, Gromitt
On point 1, I don't see why that would cause a problem as long as she is making the request.
On point 2...well, I guess I hope we won't have to take it that far then
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Nicolafine wrote: »Do tell, don't say this is a wind up?? After all, I read the entire post and was sympathetic. Perhaps you are just being cynical? Answers on a post card please ...
Or right here on the forum :cool:0 -
Well on a forum you post a brief description, then other people start to respond by asking more questions on the issue then you respond with more answers.
I am sure others wont read all of that to, gets boring.
If you find my post pointless, Thats your problem.
Ah, excuse me and thank you for departing your wisdom on the do's and don'ts regarding the ancient art of posting on Internet discussion forums. On reading up on the subject, I must have skipped the section that describes the rule of 'no detailed posts'.
*rolls eyes*
Sigh. I guess every forum has its trolls...0
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