Money not refunded by bank after I was mugged

GeoffTF

masonic said:

TheBanker said:

masonic said:

Phones could do with some sort of 'duress' mode. For example, unlocking using wrong finger causes phone to simulate shutting down due to battery being drained for the next 24 hours. But ultimately, the optimal way out of such a situation is to make the perpetrator believe you have been cooperative, while giving them as little as possible.

The problem is the criminal would know that such a mode existed, so if you activated it they would not be happy. Personally I would not want to annoy someone who was holding a knife. Even if the service alerted the Police, it could be a while before they responded in which time who knows what could happen.

I worked in a bank branch years ago, the amount of cash held in the branch was a lot more than it is today. We were always told if threatened with a weapon, give them the money. Don't try to be a hero. I think the same applies if you're being mugged. It is not worth a life changing injury, or worse, to try to save your bank balance. Let them have the money, hope they let you go, then call 999 straight away. 

I agree, hence the last sentence of my post. I still prefer the single banking app with a low balance solution.

I have just opened a Tesco Clubcard Pay+ account for that purpose:

https://www.tescobank.com/clubcard-pay-plus/

Sea_Shell

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 🤔

born_again

HillStreetBlues said:

Sea_Shell said:

HillStreetBlues 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 £££

DullGreyGuy

Exodi said:

DullGreyGuy 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.

danny13579 said:

SoftCell68 said:

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>

danny13579 said:

SoftCell68 said:

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...)

DullGreyGuy said:

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

HillStreetBlues said:

Sea_Shell said:

HillStreetBlues 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

jon81uk said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Sea_Shell said:

HillStreetBlues 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

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

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

DullGreyGuy 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.

HillStreetBlues

jon81uk said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Sea_Shell said:

HillStreetBlues 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.