Blamed for bank fraud - HELP !

Sofail

Hi All,

I'm currently with Bank of Scotland, well for the next 56 days anyway.

I'll start at the beginning:
I received 3 payments amounting to over 5k split between my current account AND ISA account.
I was not expecting these payments (initially thought possibly sent by family - unfortunately this was not the case) and so contacted Bank of Scotland to notify them of this. I was told to either move the money into another account as to ensure that I wouldn't spend the money or leave it where it was (which I did) and wait for a letter notifying me the money would be taken out and paid back to the original sender.

The next day or so I went to the bank to withdraw money, card was swallowed by cash machine so I then went into branch to discuss this - was asked to bring in more ID, did this and was then told my account had been frozen.
Turns out the payments were not made in error but rather fraudulently - They were FPI payments so I assume they were paid from the other party's online account. I was told I would receive further information the next day on the issue.

The next day I am told my accounts will be closed as they believe I am behind the fraud. At this stage I did try to discuss why they thought this and how could I prove otherwise etc but was met with only the phrase (along the lines): "The account will be closed and no more offered"
I did also ask if I would have any type of markers against my name now which would affect me and was told no initially and then when I probed further was given a "maybe"

Doing some research on my own I see that in these situations bank will apply for a CIFAS which is very serious as it can affect employment and access to other accounts from different banks.

I am of course extremely worried by this whole mess as I fear it could now affect my current job which is in Insurance - who of course will be unlikely to keep someone on with a fraud marker; as well as any future employment I may seek.

To the best of my knowledge none of my account information has been stolen or compromised - It seems to me from my conversations with several Bank of Scotland staff If I was to have lied and said my card was lost etc I probably wouldn't be in this situation of being blamed.
I accept it may be possible my online account was hacked or card details copied/cloned but as I said to the best of my knowledge this is not the case.


Any advice on this whole situation would be greatly appreciated, as well as any information you may have on CIFAS and how long it lasts - If it is applied for I will of course appeal this and if anyone else has any experience of this Id like to hear from you also.

Thank you all for reading this rather long post.

-Sofail

P.s before anyone asks, NO I am not a fraudster. I am innocent and another victim of this fraud in this whole situation.

Archi_Bald

If you haven't already complained in writing, you should do so. If you do not receive a satisfactory resolution within 8 weeks, you can then take your case to the ombudsman.

You should try and find an explanation of who knew about not only your current account but also your ISA account details. Also, you need to have a good explanation as to why you did not insist the bank remove the funds from your accounts as soon as you noticed them.

Good luck.

planteria

i'm not sure Sofail ought to be expected to have requested the removal of the funds.
if this wasn't anything to do with you Sofail, you need to just remain very very clear with the bank about it. & insist they put it right. an account with another bank, if you don't have one already, would be a good idea.

grumbler

Archi_Bald wrote: »

You should try and find an explanation of who knew about not only your current account but also your ISA account details.

I think it will be very hard to find a plausible explanation for this story.
Personally, I'd like to give the OP the benefit of doubt, but I can't.

The only explanation I can imagine is that someone wanted to cause a lot of trouble to the OP, but wasting £5K on this pleasure is far too much IMHO.

Most likely the transfers have been made from hacked account(s).

suicidebob

OP, the most likely scenario is the one that sounds most obvious, and that is that you are responsible for the fraud.

Sofail

suicidebob wrote: »

OP, the most likely scenario is the one that sounds most obvious, and that is that you are responsible for the fraud.

It's not that I don's see where you are coming from nor that I don't see that this is a very hard situation to explain (hence my plea for help) - but lets proceed under the presumption that I am innocent in this. Solutions or ideas (if available) would be helpful.

Thanks

Sofail

grumbler wrote: »

I think it will be very hard to find a plausible explanation for this story.
Personally, I'd like to give the OP the benefit of doubt, but I can't.

The only explanation I can imagine is that someone wanted to cause a lot of trouble to the OP, but wasting £5K on this pleasure is far too much IMHO.

Most likely the transfers have been made from hacked account(s).

I was thinking that my online account may have been hacked also but due to the very low amount of money present - only around 200 - the fraudsters may have decided to use it as a acc to deposit into then out of possibly to confuse or complicate any trace of the money.
How would I know If my online account is hacked ?
Can we as customers ask banks to produce to us a copy of ip addresses and locations of times where our online accounts have been logged into ?

planteria

agreed. i will proceed under that assumption.

grumbler

Sofail wrote: »

Can we as customers ask banks to produce to us a copy of ip addresses and locations of times where our online accounts have been logged into ?

It's a good idea, but unless it's other country only ISP know the location.
Also, this information can give some idea of what happened, but can't prove anything.

pinkdalek

Personally you need to complain.
You don't need to put it in writing, you can complain in branch or over the phone. The likelihood is it won't be sorted and it will be taken further to customer relations.
They then have 8 weeks to respond, if you are still not happy go to ombudsman.
In the meantime try and find another bank.

Archi_Bald

IPs can be spoofed very easily, and even if they don't get spoofed, they are often quite meaningless. For example, I am currently apparently using a Manchester IP address from BT but I am somewhere in the South East.