Oh FCUK! £1,970 Taken From My A&L Account! Please Help!

silverbullit

Oh my God! Well, I thought this could never happen to me, but i have just discovered, having checked my Alliance & Leicester Premier Direct current account online, that £1,970 has been taken from my account in relation to a transaction that i have not made! The payee is a 'deividas urbelis'; i don't know whether that's a person's or a company's name or a totally made up name. The transaction is dated 19.12.07. All i know for certain is that i did not pay that much money for an internet transaction! To date, my largest ever purchase online has been £100-150!As soon as i discovered the entry, i telephoned A&L straight away. Well what can i tell you but that A&L's 'customer service' is frighteningly bad (this is the first time i've had to contact them since i opened the account in April 07)! The first drone i spoke to put me on hold almost immediately telling me that he needs to check my account. Some twenty minutes later (!), with my nerves shredded to ribbons, i was still on hold! There i was, a deeply concerned and anxious customer left on hold for what seemed like an eternity without a word of reassurance. Thinking that the drone had forgotten about me and/or didn't plan on helping me, i put the phone down. I rang back immediately in the hope that i might get a more helpful drone. Guess what? The next one displayed as much 'customer service' as a corpse! She ('Lorraine' from Liverpool) first told me she'd have to put me on hold to contact the fraud department. Some 5 minutes later, she tells me the fraud department closes after 5.30pm! Why she didn't know that already, i have no idea! Then she put me on hold to contact the internet banking team. After another ten minutes she returned to deliver me the golden nugget 'you'll have to call back tomorrow when the fraud team are available'! To describe the breadth of her incompetence would take me a 1,000 words and would probably result in the loss of a spleen so i won't; i'm sure you get the picture!So i am left now soiling my pants not knowing what the hell is going on with my account; whether more fraudulent transactions are being drawn up, whether A&L will hold me responsible for the above transaction...or what! It is of some reassurance that my online account access has now been blocked; i hope that means no more money will disappear from it.This is the first time anything like this has happened to me. Obviously i will call A&L first thing tomorrow morning to find out where i stand, but i would appreciate your views on my situation. I would particularly like to hear from anyone else who has found themselves in a similar situation; how did you deal with it, did the bank reimburse the money lost or did they hold you responsible for the fraudulent transaction, what are my legal rights in this situation, what actions do i need to take now...etc. A whole slew of questions and anxieties are sloshing around in my head, so any thoughts and advice from you good people would be much appreciated! What a fantastic early Christmas present!
PS I DO know how to use paragraphs; it's just that when i submit the post, all the text gets bunched together! My apologies.

BallandChain

I read your post and although I haven't experienced fraud I just want to say I really feel for you. Thankfully the online access has been stopped and I am sure you can take this to someone higher up at A & L. Failing that the Financial Ombudsman would be your next port of call if you do not get any joy from A & L.

What a horrible thing to happen just before Christmas. It makes me wonder when we buy things online if our details are secure. Who knows, it could be someone rather unscrupulous who works for one of these online companies, taking details and passing them on.

Please post back and let me know the outcome. I really hope that you won't have to lose this money and I strongly believe in karma. Whoever has done this it will come to bite them in the !!!.

KiKi

You are usually protected from online fraud, assuming you did not divulge your information and have suitable protection on any PC you have used to send information on the internet.

I really feel for you - at a time like that you need some sympathy and a degree of reassurance, and people who say "just call back" really don't help.

FTR, when I googled that name, it came up with names of people that were all on Lithuanian websites. That may mean nothing, of course!

Sorry I can be no more help, but seriously, I really hope you get it sorted, mate. Let us know how you get on tomorrow??


KiKi

BallandChain

PS I just found this out on A & L website:


http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/internetbanking/index.asp?page=fraud-email


Our Online Banking Guarantee - we promise to protect you

At Alliance & Leicester, we take Internet Banking security very seriously. We use the very latest industry-standard technology, plus multiple levels of security to safeguard your personal and transaction details so that you can bank online with confidence.
If, however, in the unlikely event that you suffer from internet fraud on one of your accounts with us, we guarantee to refund any money deducted from your account - whatever the amount.
Naturally, we expect you to exercise reasonable care to keep your security details secret at all times - for full details refer to the [URL="javascript:void(window.open('https://www.mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk/registration/r7.asp','popup','width=800,height=400 top=50,left=50,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,resizeable=no'));"]Internet Banking terms and conditions[/URL]

I hope that can relieve some of the anxiety until tomorrow morning.

KiKi

(This does, of course, assume it's internet fraud and not via card or telephone banking...but that's far less likely. )

the_greed

Hi silverbullit

First of all don't panic, must be the season for it. The exact same thing happened to me yesterday, although it was ONLY £217.14. I contacted A and L and got a cheeky woman who made me feel as if I was the fraudster, anyway she blocked my debit card and is supposed to be sending me a new one within three to five days. I went to my local branch and they were totally unhelpful.

I did my own investigation, found out what the transaction was for, whose name was used and the address of where the goods were to be delivered to. I then went on to the Alliance and Leicester website found out the name of a bigwig. Can't remember his name offhand. Wrote to him, telling him the full story. Posted the letter first class at five o' clock yesterday and low and behold the money is being transferred back into my account overnight. In fact correct balance is already showing. I phoned A and L today, very nice woman, must be new, and they told me that they realise that the transaction was fraudulent.

These people who work for customer services really should get their act together when dealing with this kind of thing.

Anyway good luck

TigersEye

A&L can add another to their list, there is a few negative posts about A&L sprouting up

:idea: I think they need some training or if they could just listen properly to what their customers say and politely give a reply and then efficiently do their job.:beer::beer::beer:

KiKi

What happened, silverbullit?

Were they able to refund you??

Homework

Must have been the day for it. I only had a small amount taken on the 19th. Someone has used my card details to set up a Paypal account and spend on it and they won't give me details due to Data Protection for that account! With my bank I had to go to the branch in person and complete a form but there was no doubt with the cashier that the money will be returned in about a week. I was strongly recommended to cancel card and they are reissuing new one in about 2 weeks.

I hope the A & L is the same and your money is returned quickly.

I don't know how they get the numbers, haven't used it online and only use it for weekly shopping in store.

Good luck

space_rider

I have a seperate account that I use for my internet purchases. When I need to buy something I transfer the money from my current account. I did get an email from a company once saying that they tried to take money out for a transaction but there was insufficient funds. Reason insufficient funds was because I never made that transaction.