Fraud information...........

SevenOfNine

How much info should a bank share if it looks like the a/c has had fraudulent activity?

A faster payment was made from the a/c & a standing order set up to start the following month for regular payments. The FP was blocked & retrieved by fraud dept, the SO cancelled & on-line access disabled.

A fraud case was opened because I would not simply 'let it go'at that, it was all too casual & vague for my taste & getting that much info has been like pulling teeth! "A/c no longer compromised" just doesn't feel good enough.

What they don't seem to want to investigate/tell me is:

1) There has never been any on-line (or phone) banking access enabled for this very, very, long standing a/c, so when (& how) was on-line access activated?

2) They know the name of the person designated to receive the FP & the future SO's (& so do I, but they are unknown to me), was this a customer of theirs, another bank, or an employee?

3) It took 4 'phone calls before someone told me the first payment made was not an SO as they'd kept claiming, it was a faster payment. Why so seemingly secretive about that?

4) This outgoing/incoming fraudulent FP activity does not show at all on the a/c. I was told it had left the a/c but would be returned, so why is it 'invisible'?

I'm going round in circles, never able to speak to someone who has a clear picture, just gives vague non-answers.

Should I expect a fuller explanation or deeper investigation to give proper answers to my questions & concerns? How can I ensure the a/c isn't compromised in the same way again if they won't tell me what happened. :huh:

blue.peter

You could try raising their failure to provide information as a complaint. If that doesn't work, take it to FOS. Explain why you want the information (i.e., the last sentence of your post).

Having said that, I'm afraid I don't expect you to get the answers that you seek. I had a similar problem some years ago, though I didn't pursue it beyond the point that you've already reached. I suspect that the bank is likely to remain pretty tight-lipped. The problem is that the breach might be to their own security. If so, they won't want to say anything because of (a) potential advrse publicity and (b) they'd be giving out information that might compromise other customers' accounts (especially if they haven't yet repaired the weakness).

[Deleted User]

SevenOfNine wrote: »

Should I expect a fuller explanation or deeper investigation to give proper answers to my questions & concerns?

No. Banks are traditionally very opposed to telling their customers ways in which they could commit fraud against them.

jonnygee2

Should I expect a fuller explanation or deeper investigation to give proper answers to my questions & concerns? How can I ensure the a/c isn't compromised in the same way again if they won't tell me what happened.

In this case, the bank will have reported the activity to the National Crime Agency. The bank are not allowed to tell you they have made that report because of tipping off laws, but they will have made it.

The NCA will investigate and act as appropriate but it's unlikely you will ever hear anything more about it. Even when/if they find enough info to prosecute someone you'd very unlikely here much.

The bank themselves will do enough investigation to fill in the suspicious activity report, after that they'd only provide information if the NCA ask for it and will not be kept in the loop themselves.

Mistral001

A similar thing happened to me when I got my ATM card blocked. I lost no money, but I think some people used the ATM around the time I was using my card at the machine had their card compromised and the bank just blocked everybody's card who had used that machine that day. They would not confirm any reasons for the blocking the card other than suspicious activity etc. This was annoying. They even sent me a letter saying that someone had used my card without authorisation and when I queried the bank by telephone, they said that was just a standard letter and it was not the case, but would not say what actually happened.

I suppose I just have to accept that life is not like a police crime drama on TV where we find out what happened at the end. Though I would love to know what was the real cause of my card being blocked. My best guess is someone in a car with a telephoto lens camera reading PIN's at an ATM.

badger09

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds more like an error - human or otherwise, than attempted fraud.

Would a fraudster really set up future dated SOs?:cool:

blue.peter

jonnygee2 wrote: »

In this case, the bank will have reported the activity to the National Crime Agency. The bank are not allowed to tell you they have made that report because of tipping off laws, but they will have made it.

Really? I know that this is the case if money laundering is suspected, but does it really also apply in cases of fraud? Under what legislation?

I'm not saying that you're wrong (I can't, because it's outside my area of expertise), but this doesn't sound right. I'd be interested to know the relevant legislation.

born_again

Reporting will depend on the amount involved.
A quick call to the other bank will get a payment returned. So long as the funds are still there. When it's clear fraud.

Some people hate online access. But it is always better to set it up. As it's very least it stops any 3rd party (more often than not know to acc holder) from setting it up.

was this a customer of theirs, another bank, or an employee

Well it would be a very stupid employee...
I doubt that you will ever find out, as that is information for the bank as you suffered no loss.

born_again

Mistral001 wrote: »

A similar thing happened to me when I got my ATM card blocked. I lost no money, but I think some people used the ATM around the time I was using my card at the machine had their card compromised and the bank just blocked everybody's card who had used that machine that day.

Unlikely as if someone is cloning card details at a ATM. They will hit the cards for the max they can straight away.
So by the time a report is run on compromised cards it can be a while to pin point the location, as they need a large amount of fraud on cards to get the data.
Also now UK ATM require a chip to be read. So the only way for UK ATM fraud is for a card to be retained or stolen.
One then hopes that a customer reports it...:eek:

Having said that years ago we used to see a lot of ATM fraud in other countries at weekends. After around 5 calls we had usually pin pointed where it had happened. But this was due to only a few people on the phones on weekends so being able to talk and listen to part of other calls meant we could pick it up.
But that is no longer the case now. As we do not see that type of fraud in numbers anymore.

SevenOfNine

badger09 wrote: »

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds more like an error - human or otherwise, than attempted fraud.

Would a fraudster really set up future dated SOs?:cool:

I agree. All along I thought it sounded somewhat daft to take funds by setting up a standing order & most likely a 'keying' error of some sort.

It's finding out the first payment was a "fast payment" that bothers me, along with lack of info relating to the questions I've asked.

Though I can see now from earlier responses why they are being vague & seemingly secretive.

Ben8282

The questions asked by you unfortunately give rise to further questions.

1) There has never been any on-line (or phone) banking access enabled for this very, very, long standing a/c, so when (& how) was on-line access activated?
Why not? This is in itself unusual considering how long online banking has been around these days and telephone banking even longer . Do you really manage a current account without such access?
Quite how a fraudster could have achieved this is difficult to guess as such a registration and subsequent activation would almost certainly involve correspondence being sent to your home address and probably text messages sent to a known mobile number as well. This certainly requires explanation.
How do you know that these transactions were done online anyway?

I am curious, in view of
3) It took 4 'phone calls before someone told me the first payment made was not an SO as they'd kept claiming, it was a faster payment. Why so seemingly secretive about that?
and
4) This outgoing/incoming fraudulent FP activity does not show at all on the a/c. I was told it had left the a/c but would be returned, so why is it 'invisible'?
how you actually became aware of any of this in the first place and how you know what is stated in 4 if you have no online access to look at the account. In view of 1 above the only way that you could realistically become aware is from a statement, but in this case the transactions would have had to be shown there and the faster payment would clearly have been shown as FP. Why did you believe it was a faster payment if it was not shown on a statement and they said it was a standing order? If you have no telephone banking facility surprised you were able to pass security for them to talk to you by phone in the first place.

The idea of somebody setting up a standing order is crazy unless for some reason they imagined that you would never notice and just allow it to continue. And why a standing order? If they made one faster payment, they could presumably have just made more of them in the future.