Fraud refunds, can they be speeded up?

Shugster

Any tips on to speed up fradulent transaction refunds, and claim compensation for the bank being useless?

In January I was in Australia when Bank of Scotland sent me a new chip and pin card. This card was stolen in the post and used to make £400 worth of transactions. On my return to the UK I found letters from the bank telling me what had happened and voicemail from the police telling me they'd caught the wee ned that had done it.

Fantastic I thought, job well done all round, so I phoned up the number to claim the money back, this is where it all started to go wrong, i now live in England, and have no local Bank of Scotland branch. On explaining this I was told that my local Halifax would sort it out.

Sure enough on the Monday morning I spent an hour in the branch waiting and getting the complicated forms filled in, and left thinking that the money would be replaced later that week.

A week later, no refund, so I had to use phonebanking to enquire how long it would be. I was shocked to find that it would be 8 weeks, as even clear cut cases like this take that long to process. The best they could offer for my inconvience was an overdraft facility, but I would have to go to my branch 300 miles away to get this.

As I was in no rush for the money I decided to wait, and I'm still waiting after 12 weeks.

Is there any organisations I could speak with to help me speed up the banks procedures, and go about claiming compensation. After all if I owed the bank £400 I'm sure they would have sent me several letters and charged me lots for the privilage!

Paul_Varjak

Can you ask them to extend any overdraft limit you may have by £400?

Shugster

Yes, I was at home last week, and my branch was very helpful and shocked at how useless the Halifax side of HBOS is.

My point is, why does it take more than 12 weeks to refund fraudulent transactions when it was the bank who informed me about them. Also should I be due compensation for things such as lost interest, now that my account is overdrawn rather than being in credit.

davidcampbell

Also should I be due compensation for things such as lost interest, now that my account is overdrawn rather than being in credit.

when the fraudulently withdrawn funds are credited to your account it will be backdated to the date of the withdrawal

Is there any organisations I could speak with to help me speed up the banks procedures, and go about claiming compensation. After all if I owed the bank £400 I'm sure they would have sent me several letters and charged me lots for the privilage!

i think you are missing the point. yes its frustrating but the bank dont owe you £400. they are trying to get it back on your behalf.

they may be able to credit you some (or all) of the funds pending investigation (dont know if you have asked this?) but there isnt any obligation necessarily for them to do so.

DC

dag_2

i think you are missing the point. yes its frustrating but the bank dont owe you £400.

I beg to differ. Whatever your credit balance is - that's how much the bank owes you. If they reduce that credit balance, they have to explain why they've done it - for example, you might have been to the ATM. That's the point of getting a statement.

But the point is - if their explanation for the reduction in the credit balance isn't satisfactory - then they still owe you the money. HBOS have already admitted there's been £400 fraudulent transactions - meaning, you're not liable for it. So they should honour it. It's that simple.

If HBOS won't let you withdraw money from your account - then, as a very last resort, you could always issue a county court claim against them. However, you need to take certain steps to try getting the account settled out of court first.

buses7675

wonder if you'll also get the £400 plus however many days lost interest!

djohn2002uk

davidcampbell wrote:

i think you are missing the point. yes its frustrating but the bank dont owe you £400. they are trying to get it back on your behalf.
DC

I think it is you who is missing the point. The card was sent by the bank and stolen before arriving with the customer. Are you really saying that the customer is at fault here? I don't think so! The £400 belongs to the customer, the bank is at fault concerning the lost card and fraudulent withdrawal, the fraudster has been caught and the money should have been returned to the account straight away. It would have been the ombudsman next for me.

davidcampbell

Are you really saying that the customer is at fault here?

i dont believe so. where did i say this?

i made a perfectly valid suggestion that the bank should credit the £400 pending investigation.

the point i was trying to make is shugster wanted to be compensated for the £400 not being there. no compensation is due as he wont lose out financially. the £400 will be returned one way or another and backdated to the date of its withdrawal.

why are the bank at fault that the card was stolen in the post?

Fatboy_NSS

The customer is not at fault, but neither is the bank. The customer has had £400 stolen from them, and the bank will refund the money if they determine that the customer did not perpetrate the fraud themselves and they cannot track down the fraudster responsible. This case sounds a little different to the usual as the fraudster has actually been caught, so the bank may well be waiting to see whether he is prosecuted and when they will get the money before they write off the debt.

JanCee

You should definately be asking the bank for a "goodwill" payment in addition to the original sum. This would compensate you for your inconvenience and the length of time it has taken to sort it out. Once fraud has been confirmed there should be no need for you to wait for any police/court proceedings, that is between the fraudster and the bank. You could try writing to the newspapers to speed them up, both the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Times have sections that take up this kind of complaint on customers behalf.

djohn2002uk

davidcampbell wrote:

i dont believe so. where did i say this?

i made a perfectly valid suggestion that the bank should credit the £400 pending investigation.

the point i was trying to make is shugster wanted to be compensated for the £400 not being there. no compensation is due as he wont lose out financially. the £400 will be returned one way or another and backdated to the date of its withdrawal.

why are the bank at fault that the card was stolen in the post?

But you also sugested that the bank did not owe him £400 when they did not deliver his card safely to his address.

And the bank are at fault for continually using the same method of delivering new cards to customers even though thousands of them go missing every year resulting in millions of £s being taken from these accounts. We then suffer higher charges/ lower interest as a consequence and people like Shugster suffer the inconvenience, which could be really serious for some people.