£30,000 stolen as a result of the TalkTalk hack. Where do I stand?

throwaway1608

As I’m sure some of you are aware, TalkTalk was hacked into on August 5th and thousands of customers details were compromised. TalkTalk didn’t notify customers of this fact until August 12th, by which time, I had gone on holiday.

Upon returning, I had four separate letters from Halifax saying I had a requested three changes of security numbers with the fourth one saying my request for a change in address had been accepted. This coincided with my debit cards being declined at a petrol station that morning.

I was instructed to present myself to the main Halifax branch in my city with photo ID. We were informed on August 24th that our address and phone number had been changed (without having been requested ANY ID other than “the first line of your address and date of birth” over the phone!) and new debit cards (with PIN numbers) had been forwarded to our “new address”. £30,000 had been withdrawn in 30 x £1000 increments via bill payments to a fictional company, which just so happened to be the maximum amount allowed via bill payment, before Halifax FINALLY deemed this suspicious enough to freeze the account.

Halifax admitted they were at fault and, after 72 hours, refunded the £30,000. However my funds were frozen, including the refunded £30,000, until September 2nd. Two whole weeks. I had no access to my money whatsoever. It caused me to have to pull out of my daughter’s house deposit, and I couldn’t pay my bills. I didn’t receive a new debit card until another week after September 2nd. Three weeks without access to my money.

After going back-and-forth with both Halifax and TalkTalk about compensation, I have been offered a paltry £36 from TalkTalk and £75 from Halifax. This comes nowhere even close to covering the days I took off from work, the hours upon hours of phone calls I had to make to both companies. It doesn’t even cover the loss of interest from having my account closed for 3 weeks. I know you can’t claim for the stress caused, but my anxiety has been through the roof over this.

Where do I stand? I understand I can go down the Ombudsman route, but will I still get offered those paltry amounts for having 6-figures frozen for 3 weeks? Should I just settle for doing as much damage to their names as possible via social media outlets etc.?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m so sick of big companies getting away with murder.

nidO

I think your first port of call is a complaint to Halifax outlining their perceived failings in the handling of this fraud and your issues with it.

throwaway1608 wrote: »

I know you can’t claim for the stress caused

Not as such, but banks are generally happy to throw people who complain "go-away money" on top of reimbursing any actual expenses (in your case, phone calls and lost interest at the barest minimum, which should be outlined in your complaint. (I had an issue a few years ago with Natwest screwing up and changing the address on my accounts due to an error by one of their staff processing an address change for someone else which left me locked out of my account for 2 weeks, they just gave me £250 compo without me asking for it or suffering any real loss).

Frankly with the information given my main pursuit would be against Halifax rather than TalkTalk - Your basic information becoming known is ultimately TalkTalk's fault (actually Carphone Warehouse's but that's a different issue) but the information obtained should NOT be sufficient to allow major changes to your bank account, and the fact that Halifax accepted contact details changes with only minimal security info being provided is the major failing here.

Edit: That said, in your shoes, i'd be just as likely to take the pragmatic approach of being very relieved to have my 30 grand back (your title is disingenuous on this point as you haven't actually lost your 30 grand) and move on with life.

joe134

throwaway1608 wrote: »

As I’m sure some of you are aware, TalkTalk was hacked into on August 5th and thousands of customers details were compromised. TalkTalk didn’t notify customers of this fact until August 12th, by which time, I had gone on holiday.

Upon returning, I had four separate letters from Halifax saying I had a requested three changes of security numbers with the fourth one saying my request for a change in address had been accepted. This coincided with my debit cards being declined at a petrol station that morning.

I was instructed to present myself to the main Halifax branch in my city with photo ID. We were informed on August 24th that our address and phone number had been changed (without having been requested ANY ID other than “the first line of your address and date of birth” over the phone!) and new debit cards (with PIN numbers) had been forwarded to our “new address”. £30,000 had been withdrawn in 30 x £1000 increments via bill payments to a fictional company, which just so happened to be the maximum amount allowed via bill payment, before Halifax FINALLY deemed this suspicious enough to freeze the account.

Halifax admitted they were at fault and, after 72 hours, refunded the £30,000. However my funds were frozen, including the refunded £30,000, until September 2nd. Two whole weeks. I had no access to my money whatsoever. It caused me to have to pull out of my daughter’s house deposit, and I couldn’t pay my bills. I didn’t receive a new debit card until another week after September 2nd. Three weeks without access to my money.

After going back-and-forth with both Halifax and TalkTalk about compensation, I have been offered a paltry £36 from TalkTalk and £75 from Halifax. This comes nowhere even close to covering the days I took off from work, the hours upon hours of phone calls I had to make to both companies. It doesn’t even cover the loss of interest from having my account closed for 3 weeks. I know you can’t claim for the stress caused, but my anxiety has been through the roof over this.

Where do I stand? I understand I can go down the Ombudsman route, but will I still get offered those paltry amounts for having 6-figures frozen for 3 weeks? Should I just settle for doing as much damage to their names as possible via social media outlets etc.?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’m so sick of big companies getting away with murder.

Hi, I'm with TT, and they have never notified me, this is the first I know of it.
Thanks for the info.:beer:
Sorry about your agro with both, but, I would not settle for that paltry amount, stick out for more.Halifax gave me £50 for not transferring my Isa on a specific date, so yours is worth a lot more
.How you can quantify the hassle , is very difficult.Just threaten with the OB and if so, go down that route.
I've done it once, and was successful, ( not banking) though.
You have to exhaust the Bank and TT first.
Best of luck

lisa110rry

Throwaway, when all this is settled, may I politely suggest that having six-figure sums in one bank account is not a good way to go in future? (Although possibly the sum was artificially and temporarily high because I note what you say about your daughter's house deposit.)

I remember a few years ago I was in my bank branch and the person I was speaking with said to me "Mrs X, you of all people should use internet banking and not have such a high balance in your current account." At the time I was poised to pay for some home improvements, but he was right. Now I make "just in time" transfers when one-off payments are due to be made.

Edit: horrible experience for you, you have my sympathy.

Or did the bank freeze more than one account?

joe134

lisa110rry wrote: »

Throwaway, when all this is settled, may I politely suggest that having six-figure sums in one bank account is not a good way to go in future? (Although possibly the sum was artificially and temporarily high because I note what you say about your daughter's house deposit.)

I remember a few years ago I was in my bank branch and the person I was speaking with said to me "Mrs X, you of all people should use internet banking and not have such a high balance in your current account." At the time I was poised to pay for some home improvements, but he was right. Now I make "just in time" transfers when one-off payments are due to be made.

Edit: horrible experience for you, you have my sympathy.

Or did the bank freeze more than one account?

I have 3 San a/c's 123 with £20k,in each, et al. in each, whats the difference?

Archi_Bald

throwaway1608 wrote: »

After going back-and-forth with both Halifax and TalkTalk about compensation, I have been offered a paltry £36 from TalkTalk and £75 from Halifax. ....... It doesn’t even cover the loss of interest from having my account closed for 3 weeks.

Forgive me, but claiming you would have got more than £111 net interest in 3 weeks from £30,000 in a Halifax current account, or any Halifax account for that matter, is not helping you with your credibility. You know you made that up, and that your 'lost' interest is in fact £0. Even if you had got an account that pays interest, the amount of interest wouldn't be anywhere near the figure you claim and in any case, interest payments wouldn't stop because access to the account is temporarily blocked.

If you want to make a successful claim, you should be sticking to facts.

throwaway1608

nidO wrote: »

I think your first port of call is a complaint to Halifax outlining their perceived failings in the handling of this fraud and your issues with it.

Sorry, I should probably have made it clearer that I’ve registered thorough complaints with both Halifax and TalkTalk, where I got escalated up the chain, and this is where I stand today. I’ve angled at getting “go-away” money. I’ve talked to managers, I’ve tried every trick in the book, and Halifax are sticking to their £75. Which I personally find an insulting amount.

lisa110rry wrote: »

Throwaway, when all this is settled, may I politely suggest that having six-figure sums in one bank account is not a good way to go in future? (Although possibly the sum was artificially and temporarily high because I note what you say about your daughter's house deposit.)

Yes, unfortunately we were caught at a period where we’d just cashed in our property that we rent out as a holiday home, with completion going through whilst we were on holiday, I’d normally never have six figures in one account.

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Forgive me, but claiming you would have got more than £111 net interest in 3 weeks from £30,000 in a Halifax current account, or any Halifax account for that matter, is not helping you with your credibility. You know you made that up, and that your 'lost' interest is in fact £0. Even if you had got an account that pays interest, the amount of interest wouldn't be anywhere near the figure you claim and in any case, interest payments wouldn't stop because access to the account is temporarily blocked.

If you want to make a successful claim, you should be sticking to facts.

I know this part was not specifically mentioned in my OP, but the account that was frozen was completely closed because Halifax deemed it to be “too compromised”, thus a new one was opened. As such, I believe that this would have an affect on the interest side of things. I’m willing to be corrected. Secondly, it was 6-figures that were frozen, not £30,000. I’ve just used an online calculator to calculate the interest and it exceeds the £75 that Halifax is offering.

EDIT: I do stand corrected. Halifax pay absolutely zero instead of the 0.20% I was calculating (which I believe is my wife's bank). Thanks for the contribution. Another reason to leave them.

----

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Archi_Bald

throwaway1608 wrote: »

EDIT: I do stand corrected. Halifax pay absolutely zero instead of the 0.20% I was calculating (which I believe is my wife's bank). Thanks for the contribution. Another reason to leave them.

0.20% interest on a current account is almost as bad as 0.00%. Take the oppty to review your current account arrangements - there's a table of interest-earning accounts here. But check the very latest T&Cs and known forthcoming changes, such as the £5 monthly fee for Santander.

You will notice that Halifax figures as a good account to earn a fiver from each month, without keeping any money in the account. And as you can have 3 of them between you and your wife, I wouldn't discard them entirely if I were you - it can be £180 a year for you whilst the offer keeps running. I'd just not keep any money with them. Which is precisely what I and others have been doing for a few years now.

gadgetmind

We got a Talk Talk hack letter sent to us. However, it wasn't in our name (and we've been at this address for 20 years) and we've never had an account with Talk Talk!

joe134

gadgetmind wrote: »

We got a Talk Talk hack letter sent to us. However, it wasn't in our name (and we've been at this address for 20 years) and we've never had an account with Talk Talk!

probably mine.:)

GingerFurball_2

nidO wrote: »

I think your first port of call is a complaint to Halifax outlining their perceived failings in the handling of this fraud and your issues with it.



Not as such, but banks are generally happy to throw people who complain "go-away money" on top of reimbursing any actual expenses (in your case, phone calls and lost interest at the barest minimum, which should be outlined in your complaint. (I had an issue a few years ago with Natwest screwing up and changing the address on my accounts due to an error by one of their staff processing an address change for someone else which left me locked out of my account for 2 weeks, they just gave me £250 compo without me asking for it or suffering any real loss).

Frankly with the information given my main pursuit would be against Halifax rather than TalkTalk - Your basic information becoming known is ultimately TalkTalk's fault (actually Carphone Warehouse's but that's a different issue) but the information obtained should NOT be sufficient to allow major changes to your bank account, and the fact that Halifax accepted contact details changes with only minimal security info being provided is the major failing here.

Edit: That said, in your shoes, i'd be just as likely to take the pragmatic approach of being very relieved to have my 30 grand back (your title is disingenuous on this point as you haven't actually lost your 30 grand) and move on with life.

Date of birth and first line of address is not enough information to change someone's address.