Unusual £800+ Debit Transaction – Fraud, Impulse Spending, or System Error?

user1977

kah22 said:

The company Bernish View Traders Ltd

Who are trading: BERNISH VIEW TRADERS LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

I suspect you were looking at: BERNISH VIEW TRADERS (NI) LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

Verified by PIN suggests an in-person transaction. Does anybody else have access to her card and PIN?

visidigi

Who are financial Advisors, not plant/seed/soil sellers

SiliconChip

user1977 said:

kah22 said:

The company Bernish View Traders Ltd

Who are trading: BERNISH VIEW TRADERS LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

I suspect you were looking at: BERNISH VIEW TRADERS (NI) LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

Verified by PIN suggests an in-person transaction. Does anybody else have access to her card and PIN?

Both companies are active, and both share a director (whose occupation is listed as Financial Services for the garden company and Director for the Financial intermediation company). Both are based in Newry and have very similar postcodes, so I suspect there are strong links between the two.

born_again

kah22 said:

The company Bernish View Traders Ltd
The purchase was made on a debit card and verified by pin

So if a PIN transaction, then they were at the retailer in person.
As such nothing bank can do on the payment. They can not even find any further info. As retailers does not have to respond to requests. As a PV transaction card holder is present. 

You need to sit down with them & talk through what they did on the day of the spending. Make sure it is the day of the spend. Not the date it debited the account. As they can be different.
bank should give that & the time of the transaction.

Grumpy_chap

kah22 said:

The purchase was made on a debit card and verified by pin

So, this was an in-person transaction.

Still many unanswered questions - specifically what product or service was purchased?
If the company is a Financial Advisor / Financial Services company of some sort, has the £800 been paid into some deposit / savings / investment / pension account which is in the individual's name?

kah22

We’ve been down at  the bank this morning.  All the man on the information desk would say was that the payment was made via chip and pin, he gave her the fraud office number with some basic information. Even though it was a large amount for someone in her position he confirmed that she had enough money in the account to cover the payment at that time. He also said there was nothing they could do about helping her manage her money. 

Ill drop head office an email and see what the policy is.

Going back over Voyger2002. I don’t think there was every anything delivered certainly not to her flat - you couldn’t swing a cat in her flat and as regards the community garden, well the least said the better

Okell

kah22 said:

We’ve been down at  the bank this morning.  All the man on the information desk would say was that the payment was made via chip and pin, he gave her the fraud office number with some basic information. Even though it was a large amount for someone in her position he confirmed that she had enough money in the account to cover the payment at that time. He also said there was nothing they could do about helping her manage her money. 

Ill drop head office an email and see what the policy is.

Going back over Voyger2002. I don’t think there was every anything delivered certainly not to her flat - you couldn’t swing a cat in her flat and as regards the community garden, well the least said the better

If you are looking for advice as to how to protect your friend from themself, I think you'd be better off asking on one of the dedicated banking boards - this isn't really a consumer rights matter.

Try Budgeting & bank accounts — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Alderbank

The principle of Occam's razor is that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.

Your friend is an excellent saver when she is stable and has paid £800 into one of her savings accounts. No need to swing any cats.
Tomorrow she (not you!) could phone the investment company to confirm the details.

If she is concerned about her behaviour when in one of her manic phases, now might be a good time for you to encourage her to set up lasting power of attorney. I believe that would be Martin Lewis's advice to her.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/power-of-attorney/#:~:text=Martin%20Lewis:%20%22I%20think%20Power,or%20to%20pay%20the%20mortgage.

The longer she delays doing that the more it will cost.

born_again

kah22 said:

We’ve been down at  the bank this morning.  All the man on the information desk would say was that the payment was made via chip and pin, he gave her the fraud office number with some basic information. Even though it was a large amount for someone in her position he confirmed that she had enough money in the account to cover the payment at that time. He also said there was nothing they could do about helping her manage her money. 

Ill drop head office an email and see what the policy is.

Going back over Voyger2002. I don’t think there was every anything delivered certainly not to her flat - you couldn’t swing a cat in her flat and as regards the community garden, well the least said the better

This is a bit of a problem with branch staff. They are just sales people.

Each transaction has a Catsic code which gives a merchant code on what type of retailer they are. So they could have told you that which may have helped.

I would also be raising, given branch staff & manager know her, why her mental health condition & uncontrolled shopping sprees, has not been passed to the relevant team. That is part of their responsibility as bank staff. If they have not then that is a serious failing on their part to a customer who needs support.

Okell

born_again said:

kah22 said:

We’ve been down at  the bank this morning.  All the man on the information desk would say was that the payment was made via chip and pin, he gave her the fraud office number with some basic information. Even though it was a large amount for someone in her position he confirmed that she had enough money in the account to cover the payment at that time. He also said there was nothing they could do about helping her manage her money. 

Ill drop head office an email and see what the policy is.

Going back over Voyger2002. I don’t think there was every anything delivered certainly not to her flat - you couldn’t swing a cat in her flat and as regards the community garden, well the least said the better

This is a bit of a problem with branch staff. They are just sales people.

Each transaction has a Catsic code which gives a merchant code on what type of retailer they are. So they could have told you that which may have helped.

I would also be raising, given branch staff & manager know her, why her mental health condition & uncontrolled shopping sprees, has not been passed to the relevant team. That is part of their responsibility as bank staff. If they have not then that is a serious failing on their part to a customer who needs support.

This ^

I had a quick look yesterday and there seems to be quite a lot about how banks ought to be protecting vulnerable customers including those with mental health problems.  

For example:  Understanding and supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances - Lloyds Banking Group plc

and Treating vulnerable consumers fairly | FCA


If frontline staff at Ulster Bank aren't aware of this perhaps the OP should advise her friend to change bank.


However, I would also counsel @kah22 not to encroach too much on their friend's independence.

Just because somebody might be - for example - bipolar doesn't necessarily mean that they have to have somebody sitting on their shoulder checking everything they do and questioning every decision.  

Sometimes people have to accept responsibility for what they do.  There aren't necessarily any get outs.