£20,000 gone in fraudulent transactions from my Abbey account....

silvermum

I need your collective help here.

Over £20,000 (yes, that's right, £20K) has been paid out of my Abbey current account over the last few days to what look like foreign payees.

I'm a small business owner and this is my company current account. Abbey have kept paying over 20 transactions and let my account go £5K overdrawn too! I can't believe they have had no fraud intelligence services to alert them to this . I only found out by chance when I logged onto my bank account.

I am having HORRENDOUS problems trying to sort this out. My card has not been lost or stolen, so my data must have been skimmed.

Abbey are saying that the Visa Disputes process could take between 3-8 weeks. And there is a postal strike, so all forms etc are being delayed.

I am a small business owner - this might ruin me!

My questions are:

What can I do to speed this up?
If you have had problems like this how long has it taken to recover your money?

Abbey have had such bad press recently I wonder if it would help if I got the media involved to highlight it?

lindens

That is dreadful! You must be SO worried.
I would be disgusted with the fact that they let this happen and even more so at the length of time they think is acceptable to sort this out.
Have you rung back and spoke to a manager? How will you manage for money have they given you a temp FREE overdraft?
I would be on that phone constantly and faxing stuff instead of posting.

silvermum

Lindens - they said they could 'request' an overdraft for me, but that it would be at normal rates, and that if I thought this was unfair that I could try to claim it back later = B*strds!

Sagaris - whren you said you complained to the FO, who do you mean, the FSA or someone else? Can you give me any contacts/ details etc?

silvermum

Is that right Al?
Well that's going to take AGES especially with a postal strike and the fact they won't communicate with me by fax/ e-mail....

Sagaris

Sorry about that - my keyboard gave up the ghost and my last post seems to have gone AWOL!
Yes, I complained to the Financial Ombudsman in July, but the original complaint had been ongoing since April. When I reported them they took all the details over the phone and posted them to me the following day, I then waited the 8 weeks the bank are allowed to 'investigate' but all I got was a grovelling letter asking for more time!
I filled out the forms (only a couple of things to add as the FO had filled them in for me) and now I'm waiting to see what happens.
Abbey really don't seem to care about their customers nowadays, I really feel for you OP.
I'd certainly try the media, you can't have been the only person dissatisfied with them, you only have to look on this forum to see the Abbey threads! And what I find really galling, is that looking on here, other banks will refund you in a very short time, as the transactions are obviously not yours, and some even contact you if they suspect anything amiss on the account and stop these things in their tracks.
Unfortunately, Abbey do neither!

peterbaker

Dear OP, have you created a nasty and very noisey smell in the Abbey CEO's office yet?? I would have done ... his PA's telephone would have been white hot within hours if it was my account.

Otherwise try the media as suggested and also raise the tempo several hundred degrees here in MSE by starting a new thread with a more provocative title with the word ABBEY in capitals and other "must read" devices. Then keep it bumped to the top of the latest threads list. Tell the Abbey CEO's PA where to read all about their shamefully slow and totally unhelpful and uncaring performance in the matter so far.

How the hell did they let such a transaction pattern occur without contacting you first? And as for their investigation, it already sounds like a Portuguese police investigation, doesn't it? You are somehow to blame I suppose for having the audacity to run a small business with modestly large banking facilities :rolleyes: .

Maybe someone at Abbey small business banking ought to be put in fear of their job over this. Twenty thousand quid is a lot of sleepless nights. Better they have them at Abbey than you having them....

Good luck!

Debt_Free_Chick

Firstly - have you been dealing with Abbey's fraud department? If not, get onto them now.

And then ... have you informed the Police?

And ... is the account now frozen or have Abbey put in place measures to prevent further fraudulent payments?

Sagaris

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

Firstly - have you been dealing with Abbey's fraud department? If not, get onto them now.

And then ... have you informed the Police?

And ... is the account now frozen or have Abbey put in place measures to prevent further fraudulent payments?

Abbey told me that their fraud dept don't deal with the public! They certainly wouldn't speak to me in my dealings with them.
Peterbaker's advice sounds spot on to me- but it's just so galling that the OP has to endure all the worry etc when Abbey could have stopped most of these transactions in the first place!

MarcoM

If I was in your whoes I would do the following:

a) Go to the media, try with local papers as well. They are more likely to
take it on board.

b) Get a solicitor to write a letter to the bank explaining that you run a business and you need money and THAT IF THE BANK ARE FOUND NOT TO HAVE DEALT PROPERLY WITH THE ISSUE YOU ILL TAKE COURT ACTION.
It'll cost you 50 quid, but worth it IMHO.

This is Britain, where a bank can lose you 20k and not bother fixing the problem.

Debt_Free_Chick

I think all the suggestions about going to the media, Abbey CEO etc are a little premature. You say that the money went "in the last few days", so Abbey can hardly be accused of dragging their heels over this.

We don't even know if Silvermum is actually dealing with the right department yet. If she is, there is a process for dealing with these things and "a few days" does not seem to me to amount to a delay of any kind.

Abbey's CEO won't know the procedure for dealing with fraud - he'll just pass the enquiry on to someone who does. How many complaints do you think the CEO gets? He can't deal with them all and simply doesn't know how to sort stuff out - he just "knows a (wo)man who can".

I'll let Silvermum decide what to do next, but I would have thought that staying calm and rational would be the first step. Make sure you are dealing with the right people at Abbey and - as fraud is a crime - report the matter to the Police.

silvermum

Yes - they should definitely have spotted it IMO as I have a very predictable pattern of about 5 monthly payments on this account and everything else is credits in.

They won't put me in touch directly with their fraud department and I have already lodged an official complaint about this fact.

The promise to call me back 'within 48 hours' of my conversation with an update has just passed unfulfilled...

I don't have the CEO's office details, but now have all the UK Media Relations team details.
I'd rather just have this sorted out without major media intervention, but if I decide that's the only way to get action, then so be it (I was Head of PR & Media Relations for a large US multi-national once upon a time, so know exactly how to make these things happen if necessary )

PeterBaker - I'm new to this particular site, so can you suggest how I do this:
" raise the tempo several hundred degrees here in MSE by starting a new thread "
- which are the most read boards?
- what sort of titles are the most attention-grabbing?