HSBC customer service to children

GrumpyDil

Have you calmly asked your niece if she was bullied into transferring the money as if face id was used that is probably the most likely explanation.

Also note the previous comments that FOS will not accept a complaint until you have followed the banks internal complaint process. 

teebaks

Defo not bullied to send the money. The account belongs to a dissolved company and this happened during the holiday when she was at my house. The transactions happened at night when she was in bed. Three different transactions. The money was moved from her savings to current in £60, 70, and 70. HSBC is also claiming that the reason for the transfer is ‘family’ that is defo knows about this. 

teebaks

The bank responded to me that they are already in contact with my niece but they have not. No email or letters. This is really difficult to get hold of the team working on this case. 

If she was bullied into sending the money,there is no shame in calling this out at all but this is not the case. 

There is something with the name and account the money was transferred to and I would like the bank to investigate this. But the bank is not forthcoming with getting to the bottom of this scam. 

teebaks

Not sure if am allowed to mention the name of the scammer on this forum 

eskbanker

teebaks said:

HSBC is also claiming that the reason for the transfer is ‘family’ that is defo knows about this. 

I don't understand what the end of that sentence means but presumably the 'family' reference just signifies that whoever made the transfer labelled it as 'paying family' from a dropdown list of options?

teebaks said:

There is something with the name and account the money was transferred to and I would like the bank to investigate this. But the bank is not forthcoming with getting to the bottom of this scam. 

The bank's investigation will presumably focus on establishing whether or not the transaction was authorised by the account-holder or not, rather than actually taking any interest in the recipient as such, which would be more of a police matter if there's evidence of unlawful activity.

Even when authorised, the voluntary CRM code should require the bank to reimburse the customer unless she was deemed to have ignored effective warnings:

https://www.lendingstandardsboard.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/LSB-CRM-Code-V3.0-28-April-2022.pdf

However, Confirmation of Payee checks tend to be regarded as such warnings, so if the new payee was validated via CoP then that may well negate any claim.

In terms of account security, what other signs are there of any hacking beyond the fact that payments were made?  For a scammer to circumvent Face ID and set up or change passwords, log in, set up new payees, initiate transfers, etc, there would presumably be notifications of some sort sent for at least some of these?

AmityNeon

Has HSBC clarified how they claimed to have contacted your niece, beyond the initial letter refusing to refund?

How were these fraudulent transactions initially discovered? You say they happened at night at your house whilst your niece was in bed. Were there payment notifications (timestamped overnight) when she woke up the next morning?

How many mobile devices are registered to the HSBC account? What’s the exact model of her phone?

wolvoman

How can you know cash was transferred at night?

Marchitiello

whilst I understand the emotions around the OP initial and subsequent messages, as a Parent of a 13 yo myself  that has had saving accounts Co-managed since age 7 and Child Current accounts, fully self managed, since age 11 with Barclays, HSBC, RBS and (since age 13, without parent’s authorisation needed) with Santander, I feel like there is a bit of clarity needed:

firstly all the above mentioned Banks, not only HSBC, makes it very clear that when opening an account at age 11 to 17, the account management falls under the Child only responsibility and in authorising that account opening at the time, your niece parents/carers have agreed to this. As an example, my son had to call Barclays via Video Banking during Covid and as I was present, the banker asked my son if it was ok for her to discuss his banking with me… BTW next week should be school holiday so your sister can call and pass security with your niece there.
Santander also makes it clear for instance that at 13yo the child can open an account directly without parent authorisation. 

Secondly, the bank obviously records each time the account is accessed and how this is done, so if they said that FaceID was used to access and authorise transfers/payments, and that the device registered is only one and the one she has still access to it, I am 99.9% sure that your niece has indeed authorised those transfers/payments, maybe under some forms of duress /pressure. This may be more of a case of logging the incident with the police rather than claiming bank mismanagement. 

Again, as a parent of a 13yo who also is in continuous contact with fellow parents of the same year group, it is very common for teens to be in bed, past bedtime, and use their phones. 

Selecting “Family” amongst a drop down of options of reasons for the payments does not indicate that it was an hacker doing this.

having said all that, and considering that it looks like to be a dissolved company bank account, I am wondering if it could have been an online business maybe selling via direct links from the likes of tik-tok, Instagram or other social media shop link that requested a money transfer  instead of card payment.

in any case, I hope your niece can get a positive outcome and can indeed cal the bank together with her mum during next week holidays and get further support by the bank. 

born_again

Who has advised this is a dissolved companies account? Given the apparent lack of communication from HSBC to acc holder other than the letter. Which I seriously doubt would include anything like this, from my experience.

Has anyone checked the phone used for any social media, text, pictures or other messages that may give a hint to the issue. If coercion is involved.

Sadly there have been reports of youngsters taking pictures & then being blackmailed on the basis they will be sent round others. 

Marchitiello

born_again said:

Who has advised this is a dissolved companies account? Given the apparent lack of communication from HSBC to acc holder other than the letter. Which I seriously doubt would include anything like this, from my experience.

Has anyone checked the phone used for any social media, text, pictures or other messages that may give a hint to the issue. If coercion is involved.

Sadly there have been reports of youngsters taking pictures & then being blackmailed on the basis they will be sent round others. 

The name of the payee would have been confirmed by HSBC with the information about FaceID authorisation. From that, doing a google search, you can easily find information held at Companies House.