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Money not refunded by bank after I was mugged

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Comments

  • Sea_Shell
    Sea_Shell Posts: 10,055 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    And then you have the experience of other Co-op customers...

    https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6508916/co-op-banks-obstructive-and-unhelpful-anti-fraud-policies


    Are their policies so hit and miss, I wonder 🤔
    How's it going, AKA, Nutwatch? - 12 month spends to date = 2.60% of current retirement "pot" (as at end May 2025)
  • born_again
    born_again Posts: 21,119 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Sixth Anniversary Name Dropper
    Sea_Shell said:
    jimjames said:
    Sea_Shell said:
    This thread has definitely got me thinking about phone security and if I NEED all my banking apps on there.

    Maybe the alternative is to have all banking apps on there. Only you know which ones are the real ones.I've got 2 pages of bank apps so trying to work out which one has any money in will be a bit of a challenge or at least delay things going through that login process to find there is a zero balance.
    If you're being mugged and holding a knife to you  to get passwords won't they just demand you tell them the ones with money in them?

    But what if you genuinely don't have any money?  Living payday to payday.

    Assuming you've been attacked completely randomly, they can't know what £££ you have or don't have available.

    Then it's down to how long they spend trying to get blood out of a stone (literally ☹️) before they give up.



    Why would I want to make it harder for them? If it did happen I would expect at some point to get refunded, and I would like to still be alive to get that refund.
    Spot on.
    Get police report etc & there should be no issues.

    Your life is not worth £££
    Life in the slow lane
  • DullGreyGuy
    DullGreyGuy Posts: 18,613 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    Exodi said:
    Exodi said:
    EDITED: it seems the mods have taken action, my comments below were made before but I've edited out the comments as I don't want to promote them.

    I think some of the response to the OP have been totally disgusting to be completely honest.

    Thanks for some of the comments on here but some others seem to be from the victim blaming camp which is not only inappropriate, it is wrong.
    <removed>
    Please refrain from posting here because you 're just a keyboard warrior with no compassion.
    <removed>
    Absolutely crazy to respond to someone like this having just been robbed at knife-point.

    The witch-hunt on whether the OP has the same PIN for his banking app as his phone is completely irrelevant, given that even if he did, the attackers were accessing his account on his phone with him there (it even sounds like they did a transfer with him present). It's just more pointless nonsense like "Were you openly flaunting your watch and phone" to imply it's somehow the victims fault for being robbed. I personally hope the mods pull up some of the worst offenders in this thread. What a sad introduction to this forum.

    For those discussing removing the apps from the phone, alternatively you can just hide the apps (e.g. via Secure Folder or by putting them in obscure folders (e.g. the third page of 'Food' apps, for example)) but this is all captain hindsight stuff, the majority of people would be susceptible to the attack, just like the OP was. I certainly would be.

    Please provide us an update of the banks decision as I think it would useful to others whether the banks takes responsibility for the theft given the circumstances. And please ignore the less than friendly posters, most of us aren't like that. I hope bans are issued.

    I can't imagine how terrified you must have been at the time, especially having sustained a serious eye injury. My worst nightmare, it's making my hair raise just thinking about it.
    I think we have very different views of what a witch hunt looks like @exodi

    No one is blaming the victim that I can see on here
    At least 6 comments have been removed from this thread by mods. There have been clear examples of victim-blaming which I won't repeat for obvious reasons.

    Agree with the other stuff you say about discussion to help potential future victims (assuming it is done compassionately to the OP...)
    Its best practice of different password/PINs is widespread and potentially could be used as an argument as to being careless in the loss depending on exactly what happened. That isn't victim blaming but thinking practically about the complaints process and the fact banks aren't liable if it can be shown the customer hasn't sufficient careful with their card/PIN/Access etc. 
    Will disagree on this again as the muggers accessed his banking app with him there. Whether he used the same PIN or not (which is only speculation and to be honest, I'm not completely clear why it was even brought up in the first place) is again irrelevant, because the muggers would have just asked him for his bank app PIN in the latter case. They did a transfer in his presence. No OTP, secret question, 12+ digit passcode with special characters, etc would have prevented it.

    I doubt the bank would use this as an argument as the muggers would have gotten in either case. I sincerely doubt they'd even ask this detail, yet some in this thread seem obsessed by it.
    @Exodi but that is the whole point, I have 12 banking apps with 12 different codes all of which are different to the PIN for the phone. Do you think the muggers brought a pen and paper to record them all down? The OP's transfers were done hours later from the event when they were no longer with them... if the OP was held by them for the four hour spread from the first to the last payment then its a kidnapping not just a mugging. 

    It could be that the muggers only asked for the pin for the phone and then ran off after they saw it worked... there was nothing in the OPs original thread to say they were asked for any banking PINs. I would certainly have given my phone PIN if asked, I would have given my banking PINs too if asked, however if not asked for banking then they would have been able to get into the phone to make it sellable but been unable to get into my bank accounts (subject to any recover password type processes). 

    As to Mods deleting stuff? They are human, far from flawless and don't have a good record in my opinion. 
  • jon81uk
    jon81uk Posts: 3,898 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Sea_Shell said:
    jimjames said:
    Sea_Shell said:
    This thread has definitely got me thinking about phone security and if I NEED all my banking apps on there.

    Maybe the alternative is to have all banking apps on there. Only you know which ones are the real ones.I've got 2 pages of bank apps so trying to work out which one has any money in will be a bit of a challenge or at least delay things going through that login process to find there is a zero balance.
    If you're being mugged and holding a knife to you  to get passwords won't they just demand you tell them the ones with money in them?

    But what if you genuinely don't have any money?  Living payday to payday.

    Assuming you've been attacked completely randomly, they can't know what £££ you have or don't have available.

    Then it's down to how long they spend trying to get blood out of a stone (literally ☹️) before they give up.



    Why would I want to make it harder for them? If it did happen I would expect at some point to get refunded, and I would like to still be alive to get that refund.
    Why would you expect to get refunded? If they stole cash out your pocket you wouldn't get it refunded. Thats the crux of the thread, is it up to the bank to recover stolen money? Or up to the police? Are the police really going to do anything?
  • DullGreyGuy
    DullGreyGuy Posts: 18,613 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    jon81uk said:
    Sea_Shell said:
    jimjames said:
    Sea_Shell said:
    This thread has definitely got me thinking about phone security and if I NEED all my banking apps on there.

    Maybe the alternative is to have all banking apps on there. Only you know which ones are the real ones.I've got 2 pages of bank apps so trying to work out which one has any money in will be a bit of a challenge or at least delay things going through that login process to find there is a zero balance.
    If you're being mugged and holding a knife to you  to get passwords won't they just demand you tell them the ones with money in them?

    But what if you genuinely don't have any money?  Living payday to payday.

    Assuming you've been attacked completely randomly, they can't know what £££ you have or don't have available.

    Then it's down to how long they spend trying to get blood out of a stone (literally ☹️) before they give up.



    Why would I want to make it harder for them? If it did happen I would expect at some point to get refunded, and I would like to still be alive to get that refund.
    Why would you expect to get refunded? If they stole cash out your pocket you wouldn't get it refunded. Thats the crux of the thread, is it up to the bank to recover stolen money? Or up to the police? Are the police really going to do anything?
    This isn't the same as cash being taken from your pocket... the bank can see a new payee being set up and then a series of transactions being made to them. The OP believes that their fraud protection systems should have been triggered as these were atypical transactions and should have been held which the bank was capable of doing. A bank cannot stop someone lifting your wallet from your pocket. 
  • masonic
    masonic Posts: 27,729 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    It is very important to remember that the banks are the gatekeepers of banking facilities and no criminal can steal your money by bank transfer anonymously without a failure in the system.
  • DullGreyGuy
    DullGreyGuy Posts: 18,613 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    edited 27 February 2024 at 7:33PM
    masonic said:
    It is very important to remember that the banks are the gatekeepers of banking facilities and no criminal can steal your money by bank transfer anonymously without a failure in the system.
    That depends on if they were UK or international transfers. Non-banking services that make use of common accounts are obvious targets like Wise, Western Union etc. 
  • masonic
    masonic Posts: 27,729 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    masonic said:
    It is very important to remember that the banks are the gatekeepers of banking facilities and no criminal can steal your money by bank transfer anonymously without a failure in the system.
    That depends on if they were UK or international transfers
    True, but if money is stolen by international bank transfer without challenge from the bank in question, for the vast majority of cases that would be a failure in the bank's security systems in identifying a suspicious transaction.
  • jon81uk said:
    Sea_Shell said:
    jimjames said:
    Sea_Shell said:
    This thread has definitely got me thinking about phone security and if I NEED all my banking apps on there.

    Maybe the alternative is to have all banking apps on there. Only you know which ones are the real ones.I've got 2 pages of bank apps so trying to work out which one has any money in will be a bit of a challenge or at least delay things going through that login process to find there is a zero balance.
    If you're being mugged and holding a knife to you  to get passwords won't they just demand you tell them the ones with money in them?

    But what if you genuinely don't have any money?  Living payday to payday.

    Assuming you've been attacked completely randomly, they can't know what £££ you have or don't have available.

    Then it's down to how long they spend trying to get blood out of a stone (literally ☹️) before they give up.



    Why would I want to make it harder for them? If it did happen I would expect at some point to get refunded, and I would like to still be alive to get that refund.
    Why would you expect to get refunded? If they stole cash out your pocket you wouldn't get it refunded. Thats the crux of the thread, is it up to the bank to recover stolen money? Or up to the police? Are the police really going to do anything?
    Because the banks decided to roll out phone apps with the risks that it involves. So the regulator decided that the risk shouldn't pass to the customer,
    Armed robbers use to rob banks and the banks took the hit, as it's much the same now unless the bank shows fraudulently, or with intent or gross negligence

    https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints-deal/fraud-scams
    Regulations state that if a customer hasn’t authorised a payment, the bank should refund the money – so long as the customer hasn’t acted fraudulently, or with intent or “gross negligence”. We take the view that “gross negligence” is a suitably high bar that goes well beyond ordinary carelessness.

    You can't authorise a payment when threaten.
    Let's Be Careful Out There
  • DullGreyGuy
    DullGreyGuy Posts: 18,613 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    masonic said:
    masonic said:
    It is very important to remember that the banks are the gatekeepers of banking facilities and no criminal can steal your money by bank transfer anonymously without a failure in the system.
    That depends on if they were UK or international transfers
    True, but if money is stolen by international bank transfer without challenge from the bank in question, for the vast majority of cases that would be a failure in the bank's security systems in identifying a suspicious transaction.
    When was the last time you were challenged on making an international transfer from your bank? Given the poor rates involved and normally I need to pay $X rather than £Y and whatever that converts to in USD/CAD etc I tend to use Wise instead. 

    The last few times I can remember it was arguable easier to do than transferring to a UK person where you now have the name verification process. 
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