Forged cheque nightmare - HSBC making me pay £10,500

jonesMUFCforever

Possibly what may have happened is that the dud cheque was paid in by a 3rd party - then cheques drawn on the OP's account were made to pay the money out allegedly 'signed' by the OP.

He is not making much sense I know as he does not seem to have the full story and has destroyed what is now invaluable letters from the bank.

malacka96

colsten wrote: »

I am sorry but I find the events you describe a little confusing, OP. Can you clarify by answering the questions below, please?

Why would a cheque that gets paid into your account carry your signature? Was the cheque drawn on a different account in your name?

Where did/do you keep your chequebook?



How can you end up overdrawn when the cheque got returned?

I had a savings account along with my current account. I just rang HSBC to clarify all of this, they said the cheque was paid into my savings account, then moved to my current account and the two bank transfers to the random accounts were then made. The phone agent said people write cheques to themselves into their savings account. He said much of the information related to the cheque is limited since my account is now closed. He stated I either have to go into the branch for a copy of the cheque, or they can mail it. I will wait for it to arrive in the mail and come back on here to report.

I keep my chequebook at my home away from uni, I do not believe I took it to uni and I have never used it, so I am not getting it. I don't know if a replicate was made this is only known to the fraudsters.

The bolded is the very question that I have been banging my head against the wall about. My welfare tutor also said the same thing. I believe it was because the money was transferred to random accounts and withdrawn by whoever.

I do not understand any of this! HSBC have really made errors here. The whole thing is one big mess

colsten

malacka96 wrote: »

I had a savings account along with my current account. I just rang HSBC to clarify all of this, they said the cheque was paid into my savings account, then moved to my current account and the two bank transfers to the random accounts were then made.

Thanks for attempting to clarify. I still don't get it, though. You need to provide more info, like actual balances and amounts. For the following example, I am assuming that the balances in both, your current and your savings account were zero when the debacle started.

1. a cheque for £9,566, drawn on your current account, gets deposited into your savings account.
2. when the cheque had cleared, you had plus £9,566 in your savings account, and minus £9,566 in your current account
3. when the £9,566 was transferred from your savings to your current account, the balance of your savings account was £0 again. The balance of your current account was also £0 again.
4. if 2 payments, totalling £9,566 were then made from your current account to the fraudster's account(s), it sounds as if HSBC let you go overdrawn even though you didn't have an overdraft facility of that size

Is this what you think happened?

malacka96 wrote: »

The phone agent said people write cheques to themselves into their savings account. He said much of the information related to the cheque is limited since my account is now closed. He stated I either have to go into the branch for a copy of the cheque, or they can mail it. I will wait for it to arrive in the mail and come back on here to report.

You definitely need a copy of that cheque, front and back. And you need to clarify/verify which account the cheque was paid into, and how & when it was returned. It doesn't seem to make sense that HSBC would allow you/the fraudster to use the £9,566 in the savings account before the cheque had cleared.

Apologies if you have already answered this: How was the money transferred from the savings account to your current account, and then out of your current account? Was it online, or through the HSBC app on your phone?

malacka96 wrote: »

I keep my chequebook at my home away from uni, I do not believe I took it to uni and I have never used it, so I am not getting it. I don't know if a replicate was made this is only known to the fraudsters.

Is a cheque missing from your cheque book? If so, is it the one which was paid in by the fraudsters? Cheques are numbered, so it would be easy to see whether it's a cheque from the cheque book you had/have.

malacka96 wrote: »

The bolded is the very question that I have been banging my head against the wall about. My welfare tutor also said the same thing. I believe it was because the money was transferred to random accounts and withdrawn by whoever.

the actual facts are needed for anyone to start attempting to help you

malacka96 wrote: »

I do not understand any of this! HSBC have really made errors here. The whole thing is one big mess

agree, it sounds a mess. I think you need to step back and write down the detailed sequence of events. You also need to collate the complete evidence, such as a copy of the cheque, your cheque book, and the letters HSBC have sent you and which you threw away in anger. Please ask HSBC for copies. Once you have the complete story and your evidence, perhaps take it to your Citizens Advice Bureau and ask one of their advisors to review it with you. If they can't help themselves, they may be able to refer you to someone else, such as a Debt Charity.

Terry_Towelling

All the 'facts' are still very confused - and the original post seems to have changed a bit. What follows may sound like utter rubbish but it is just a bit of blue-sky-thinking based on what we seem to be being told here. It is pure speculation and guesswork.

Might it be that HSBC will allow internal intra-customer transfers of an uncleared cheque on the basis that it still can't be drawn against until it has cleared. However, might there be a hole in HSBC's system that fails to properly track the transaction string and prepares to clear the initial pay-in to the savings account because the online transfer makes it look like there is sufficient cash in the current account to cover it. That tricks the system into allowing the credit balance in the current account to be available for withdrawal. When the original pay-in clears properly, the circularity uncovers itself and the cheque bounces.

Frankly, I can't believe it but, if true, it might explain why HSBC has not gone any further than threatening OP in all this time. It would also need someone with inside knowledge to understand that this could be possible and you'd expect HSBC to have plugged the hole by now.

If you think this is just a flight of fancy, you'd be right but I can't think of any other explanation given the facts we have thus far had revealed. More facts might reveal something else.

Mr.Saver

After you have a copy of the cheque, find out is it paying into your HSBC account or paying out from your HSBC account.

If it's paying out, then the cheque should have been issued by HSBC, therefore it should have your HSBC account number and sort code on it. Each cheque has an unique cheque number on them. Can you verify that the cheque that has the same number is still on your cheque book? If you can find a cheque with the same cheque number on your book, then you will have a solid proof that this cheque is a counterfeit. If not, to whom did you send this cheque to? You should have written down the date, payee name and amount on the remaining part of your cheque book for your own reference.

If the cheque is paying into your HSBC account, then what's the payer's account on that cheque? Is it one of your account? If not, then why does it have your signature (real or not) on it? If it's one of your another account, then check your cheque book which belongs to that account the same way as above.

And don't panic, it's not your fault, you are the victim, you will need to calm down, collect evidence, use your brain, figure out how did the crooks took the money away from you, and show the evidence to the bank and Action Fraud to put an end to this.

malacka96

Thank you so much all for the help! Sorry for my poor clarity. I should have asked for assistance with clearer information at hand, but this is all helping me to establish loopholes and confusions that I can raise with FOS to get to the bottom of this!

colsten wrote: »

Thanks for attempting to clarify. I still don't get it, though. You need to provide more info, like actual balances and amounts. For the following example, I am assuming that the balances in both, your current and your savings account were zero when the debacle started.

1. a cheque for £9,566, drawn on your current account, gets deposited into your savings account.
2. when the cheque had cleared, you had plus £9,566 in your savings account, and minus £9,566 in your current account
3. when the £9,566 was transferred from your savings to your current account, the balance of your savings account was £0 again. The balance of your current account was also £0 again.
4. if 2 payments, totalling £9,566 were then made from your current account to the fraudster's account(s), it sounds as if HSBC let you go overdrawn even though you didn't have an overdraft facility of that size

Is this what you think happened?


You definitely need a copy of that cheque, front and back. And you need to clarify/verify which account the cheque was paid into, and how & when it was returned. It doesn't seem to make sense that HSBC would allow you/the fraudster to use the £9,566 in the savings account before the cheque had cleared.

Apologies if you have already answered this: How was the money transferred from the savings account to your current account, and then out of your current account? Was it online, or through the HSBC app on your phone?

Is a cheque missing from your cheque book? If so, is it the one which was paid in by the fraudsters? Cheques are numbered, so it would be easy to see whether it's a cheque from the cheque book you had/have.

the actual facts are needed for anyone to start attempting to help you

agree, it sounds a mess. I think you need to step back and write down the detailed sequence of events. You also need to collate the complete evidence, such as a copy of the cheque, your cheque book, and the letters HSBC have sent you and which you threw away in anger. Please ask HSBC for copies. Once you have the complete story and your evidence, perhaps take it to your Citizens Advice Bureau and ask one of their advisors to review it with you. If they can't help themselves, they may be able to refer you to someone else, such as a Debt Charity.

Thank you! To answer your questions, yes that sounds like that's what happened. I remember being told that it was done through online banking and a cheque, hence why my security details were asked for in that fake phone call that I moronically fell for! No cheques have been used in my chequebook so there are none missing. And you are right, I really apologise for asking for advice when I do not have all of the facts myself, since it's not easy for people to help if you don't even have the full story or don't understand what's going on like myself! Thank you, I will do all that you said. The copy of the cheque should come in the post in the next week and I will come back on here to report the actual details!

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

All the 'facts' are still very confused - and the original post seems to have changed a bit. What follows may sound like utter rubbish but it is just a bit of blue-sky-thinking based on what we seem to be being told here. It is pure speculation and guesswork.

Might it be that HSBC will allow internal intra-customer transfers of an uncleared cheque on the basis that it still can't be drawn against until it has cleared. However, might there be a hole in HSBC's system that fails to properly track the transaction string and prepares to clear the initial pay-in to the savings account because the online transfer makes it look like there is sufficient cash in the current account to cover it. That tricks the system into allowing the credit balance in the current account to be available for withdrawal. When the original pay-in clears properly, the circularity uncovers itself and the cheque bounces.

Frankly, I can't believe it but, if true, it might explain why HSBC has not gone any further than threatening OP in all this time. It would also need someone with inside knowledge to understand that this could be possible and you'd expect HSBC to have plugged the hole by now.

If you think this is just a flight of fancy, you'd be right but I can't think of any other explanation given the facts we have thus far had revealed. More facts might reveal something else.

This does sound credible, honestly not knowing virtually anything about fraud or banking systems I barely understand the inner workings of it but I will raise your theory and query it with the FOS.

Mr.Saver wrote: »

After you have a copy of the cheque, find out is it paying into your HSBC account or paying out from your HSBC account.

If it's paying out, then the cheque should have been issued by HSBC, therefore it should have your HSBC account number and sort code on it. Each cheque has an unique cheque number on them. Can you verify that the cheque that has the same number is still on your cheque book? If you can find a cheque with the same cheque number on your book, then you will have a solid proof that this cheque is a counterfeit. If not, to whom did you send this cheque to? You should have written down the date, payee name and amount on the remaining part of your cheque book for your own reference.

If the cheque is paying into your HSBC account, then what's the payer's account on that cheque? Is it one of your account? If not, then why does it have your signature (real or not) on it? If it's one of your another account, then check your cheque book which belongs to that account the same way as above.

And don't panic, it's not your fault, you are the victim, you will need to calm down, collect evidence, use your brain, figure out how did the crooks took the money away from you, and show the evidence to the bank and Action Fraud to put an end to this.

Thank you! When the cheque arrives I will answer these questions, you have brought up legitimate faults by HSBC that I can query during the FOS investigation.

ChrisK....._3

Some people are simply not responsible enough to be given control of a car or a bank account and should just keep the cash under their mattress where they can control it

malacka96 wrote: »

.... I had received a call a few weeks prior with someone posing to be HSBC staff, saying that they are updating the system and need to confirm my security details for my internet banking, that if I did not confirm my details my account would get wiped off the system and I would no longer be able to access it online. They were so believable, and I was very naive but fell for it!! I believed it to really be HSBC and never thought that it could be fraudsters....

colsten

ChrisK..... wrote: »

Some people are simply not responsible enough to be given control of a car or a bank account and should just keep the cash under their mattress where they can control it

Thank you for trying to be constructive and helpful. Not.

Terry_Towelling

One more thing @malacka96, can you help us to understand how your HSBC current account (which you've now said was your active current account at the time) came to have a precisely zero balance just in time for the alleged fraud to take place? That's very convenient timing and sounds highly unlikely for an active current account.

Apologies if I am coming across as 'suspicious' but the fact is, I am. I found your opening post to be quite revealing (confused but revealing). Too cliched and a little contradictory - cried yourself to sleep almost every night since but you hardly sleep - stressed beyond belief but you passed your exams - that sort of thing. It's all laid on far too thickly and I don't see why you would put so much of that information in.

That said, I like to try and solve a riddle so will keep posting (if you don't mind).

And, why are you so worried about it? - you say you are blameless and innocent. If you know that to be true there really is very little to worry about.

malacka96

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

One more thing @malacka96, can you help us to understand how your HSBC current account (which you've now said was your active current account at the time) came to have a precisely zero balance just in time for the alleged fraud to take place? That's very convenient timing and sounds highly unlikely for an active current account.

Apologies if I am coming across as 'suspicious' but the fact is, I am. I found your opening post to be quite revealing (confused but revealing). Too cliched and a little contradictory - cried yourself to sleep almost every night since but you hardly sleep - stressed beyond belief but you passed your exams - that sort of thing. It's all laid on far too thickly and I don't see why you would put so much of that information in.

That said, I like to try and solve a riddle so will keep posting (if you don't mind).

And, why are you so worried about it? - you say you are blameless and innocent. If you know that to be true there really is very little to worry about.

It was in the negatives because of my overdraft, near £-1000, which is why I'm owing more than the cheque's amount - all of which I mentioned in my first post and my first reply to you. First of all everyone else seemed to get that when I said HSBC are my former bank I am speaking in the present time so I don't know how you missed that. Of course I will eventually have to sleep, otherwise I would be dead! (As one dies if they do not sleep at all). But the number of hours of sleep I've been getting since is not good. You do realise that it is possible to cry yourself to sleep, and then still get little sleep right? The action of crying yourself to sleep is just what happens before you do fall asleep, and has no correlation to the actual number of hours you spend sleeping. You are not making sense there. I myself am shocked that I passed my exams, but I still revised and stuck it out despite being under great stress, I had to. Other people have passed exams when going through stressful situations, I know a guy whose father had just died from cancer and he came out with the highest grades in all his exams.

Again, as I mentioned in my post I am worried because I read a multitude of reviews from innocent people saying that the Financial Ombudsman let them down, is biased, favours with the bank when the client is in the right etc.