HSBC / William Hill Fraud

Saver101101

I really need a bit of help and advice.

When it was the Grand National a few weeks ago I put a bet on via William Hill Online. The last time I used William Hill online was the previous Grand National . I deposited £5 using my HSBC Debit card which is stored by William Hill, and won a total of 70p !.

Then on Sunday night (19th April) about 11:30pm I got a notification on the HSBC app for debits to William Hill for £50, £100, £200, £200, £200 and £200 very Rapidly one after the other. I immediately went onto the app and froze the card, five more debits of £95 came through but were rejected as I had frozen the card.

I immediately called HSBC but was told the fraud department closed at 11pm, so to call back tomorrow (Monday).

I called and the first advisor told me just to unfreeze the app as there were refunds pending and that would fix it, I told her I was not going to unfreeze the card and wanted to speak to the fraud department, she said there was no point as that’s what they will also tell me to do, but I asked to be put through to them.

It took ages to be connected and trying to explain what William Hill was, the Grand National or anything was pointless, they hadn’t heard of anything like that, the advisor kept on asking if it was Crypto !, of course they noticed the £5 deposit a few weeks earlier, and you could tell they didn’t believe me, basically as I had used William Hill before it must be me !, he did say that I should never have been told to unfreeze the card in case there was more fraud.

Eventually he did the report ordered me a new debit card and passed me through to the disputes team, again same questions and was told they need to pass me through to the Fraud department !.

I was then told that as the transactions were only pending there is nothing they could do until they actually debited my account, which is fair enough.

Yesterday (Wednesday) they all debited (See attached image), so phoned back and was told they cant do anything as they can see refunds in the system, and I am to wait 10 days for these to come though, if they don’t then I am to call back, he confirmed the refunds are for £50, £100, £200 and £200, now of course that not all of the debits, there are still 2 x £200 missing to be refunded, which according to HSBC they can’t do anything about.

Now I should point out that was soon as this happened I got right onto William Hill via their chat service as they don’t have a phone number, and they are apparently looking into it and have frozen my William Hill Account whilst they do so.

I have also reported it to action fraud. I did phone HSBC to raise a complaint regarding misinformation (Told to unfreeze the card) and was told that HSBC is a Global bank with many different departments, so it’s inevitable that you might be given wrong information !.

Soon as this is sorted I am leaving them, their customer service is awful. But I am also worried that I am never going to get this money back, so any advice would be apricated.

eskbanker

Were/are the transactions visible within your William Hill account?

Best to focus at this stage on being reunited with your money, stuff like Report Fraud (previously known as Action Fraud) and complaints can come later.

Saver101101

Unfortunately I cant see the transactions in the William Hill account as my main focus was to contact them to report it, once I did that they froze the account and I no longer have access to it. I did notice that when I logged in the balance was around £2355, which is odd as only £950 was taken in total from my card, and there was a zero balance left in it after the grand national.

Saver101101

This is the only email I have had from William Hill:

Thanks for your recent contact.

You have informed us that there is unauthorised access on your account.  Don't worry about your account, we've suspended all activity while we look into this for you. 

Can you please tell us:

• Dates of the unauthorised transactions

• Your last activity

• Where you last accessed your account

• Your internet service provider (eg BT, Virgin, etc.) 

These information will be reviewed by our Security Team and we'll get back to you via email with an update.

If you have any more questions, you can find answers in our help centre.

Kind regards,

Customer Services

William Hill Online

eskbanker

Hopefully William Hill will be able to validate that it wasn't you who funded the account by withdrawing from your bank, and should reimburse any remaining fraudulent transactions, assuming you took the usual precautions with the account, i.e. setting up 2FA, not disclosing passwords, etc.

Saver101101

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81974921#Comment_81974921

Yes all precautions taken.

sgthammer

It sounds as if William Hill are quite on the ball with this and it will turn out okay in the end. Although you can no longer see your account, sending them the screenshot you've posted here should be enough to identify the dodgy transactions.

Your experience with the HSBC call centre suggests a staff member less familiar with British mass culture than you might expect, but if even they are telling you there are pending refunds in the system then it sounds as if their technical processes for identifying potential fraud are robust enough to get the job done regardless. Hopefully the transactions they haven't spotted yet will show up in the course of their checks.

But it's obviously frustrating that you may have to wait a week or two to be sure it's all resolved, especially if you need the money for anything else in the meantime.

Saver101101

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81975558#Comment_81975558

2 Refunds from William Hill were received into my HSBC account this morning, 2 x £200 = £400, so only £550 to go.

grumpy_codger

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81975558#Comment_81975558

It sounds as if William Hill are quite on the ball with this and it will turn out okay in the end.

Sure it will with £950 deposited and £2355 balance (if the OP wasn't mistaken and this really was the case), winnings I guess. They will be happy to keep £1.5K and the OP has nothing to worry about

Saver101101

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81975885#Comment_81975885

Yes it defiantly was £2355 when I logged in, but didn’t want to waste time going looking, and the Help Section to contact them wasn’t that easy to find and I was a bit stressed and just wanted it to stop before anything else happened, so contacting them was my first priority, although obviously someone had been in there doing something if they took £950 from me but the balance was £2355. The thing I don’t understand was the speed, from the time of the notifications from HSBC to me freezing the card and logging into William Hill would be under 10 minutes, so I don’t understand what bets someone could place that would win within 10 minutes ?.

grumpy_codger

I don’t understand what bets someone could place that would win within 10 minutes ?.

For instance, horse/dog races.