Abbey Online Banking Fraud

biwmares

Last week I had an urgent message on my answerfone from someone at Abbey wanting me to ring them to confirm a payment being made from my online bank account. When I checked my account online I discovered that someone had logged onto it the evening before and set up a payment of just under £5000 and transferred the money to a Bank of Scotland account. I rang the Abbey's online fraud people straight away.

It's obviously very worrying that someone was able to do this as it requires 3 separate passwords to log on and there's no way anyone else knows them.

I asked how Abbey had suspected something was wrong and was told that the person who had hacked my account had done so using a different ISP to me and that's how it was spotted. They say the money has gone but I'll get it back under their guarantee (I hope).

My question is this to anyone who reads this. When I set up an online payment the money comes off my account straightaway but doesn't appear in the recipients bank account for up to 4 days. So, given that Abbey knew about the fraud the morning after it took place surely they should be able to block the payment before it reaches the fraudster?

Does anyone have any knowledge of the clearing process for online payments and know whether payments can be halted in transit? Has anyone else suffered from fraud with Abbey?

jonesMUFCforever

Anglesey man/lady??

Fraud happens - fact. There are many ways that somebody can get hold of your details from a key logger on your computer to a family member/friend making a note of the details - does your computer remember the log in details for instance?

At the moment you are right it takes about 4 days to show in another bank as in a BACS transfer. I think you should thank Abbey for being on the ball (If you see some of my old postings about SHabbey you will know what I think of them under Spanish rule. They are an absolute joke) but you will have to wait for the money to come back. To recall the payment it has to get there first. I would say that the 2 banks have spoken to each other and any attempt by the fraudster to get his/her hands on the money will fail.

What should you do now?
Firstly have an up to date anti virus and firewalls -(not the Windows ones you get with Microsoft) - I use AVG and Zone Alarm.
Change your own personal logon to your ISP and Internet banking - you may find that Abbey have temporarily blocked your online access anyway.

Never ever click on any e-mail link supposedly from your bank or any other bank - always go to the site yourself.

When you get the money back treat yourself to a pint or two at the Bulkeley!

Mikeyorks

biwmares wrote: »

So, given that Abbey knew about the fraud the morning after it took place surely they should be able to block the payment before it reaches the fraudster?

They won't want to do anything before it reaches the target account .... in order to create an audit trail for possible fraud proceedings.

But, as ejones correctly says, they will have spoken to BoS fraud people and have discussed a course of action. Which may include seeing whether the fraudster attemps to transfer the money onwards - to track what other accounts are in the network? However, their money to worry about at that point ... you will get yours back.

tori276

This exact same thing happened to me on Thursday last week.

I logged on to my account Thursday night and noticed that £2000 had been transferred from my account to someone that had just appeared in my payments list.

I phoned card fraud, they did nothing, I phoned fraud in the morning, they then stopped my card and suspended access to my online bank account. Hopefully I will receive the money back in my account at some point.

I have the latest anti-everything software (McAffee) and the same firewall. I am incredibly cautious of all activity on the net and thorough.

Normally when I make an immediate payment to someone in my payments list it shows up in a list to be approved, but this time it seemed to go out straight away because when I logged in the same day as the fraudsters did it, it wasn't in the list. So someone in Abbey approved this ad then after reporting it that night and the next morning, I suddenly got a call out of the blue from Abbey querying it.

I explained I'd already spoken to someone about it.

But I am now wondering if this is arepeat of the internal fraud abbey experienced before. Seems odd that there is a sudden glut of these.

I was even able to view the account details of the person it was being transferred to. It was a Barclays account.

Have you heard anything back from them yet?

Mattposter

Thought I'd register and post my experiences here.

I've had two instances of fraud recently with Abbey. The first was debit card fraud. For some reason Abbey called my parents' address to query the fraud. After much ringing around I got through to Abbey's fraud team who confirmed that it had been a genuine call.

The second was a telephone banking call they received on my MBNA credit card to transfer £9000 (!) to a Bank of Scotland account.

I'm now wondering if Abbey are that safe. Both of these occurred in the same week. I've never had any fraud on any other accounts. Although the team that assisted me on the phone were professional and very helpful, I'm seriously thinking of switching.

Matt

tori276

I'm definitely switching.

If I ever get that £2000 back! I can't seem to get an answer out of anyone at Abbey. On the worst day I got transferred to 6 different departments having to go through security with each and every one of them (even though I was transferred internally).

I phoned up to check on the progress of the fraud investigation this week and was told there was no record of fraud on my account. This was after spending over an hour on the phone to three different departments the day I spotted it.

My cards were stopped, my access to online banking was stopped, I had no cash (only my credit card to use) and I almost wasn't allowed to speak to Abbey when I phoned up to ask if there were any more fraudulent transactions on my account becuase I didn't know what the most recent transactions on my account were. I tried explaining to the nice indian call centre operator that this was why I was phoning (because I had no access to online banking or cash machine to check this myself and was old they could not deal with me. So I hung up and tried another member of staff. Who then asked me to spell my (very simple) home town out 4 times. In the end I asked to be transferred to someone locally who actually understood what I was saying. Then I got an overdraft increase and the answer to my initial question.

If you are thinking of getting an Abbey account DO NOT. I repeat DO NOT. You will save a lot of money spent calling them and the frustration of being told that that call was never logged int he first place at a later date.

PROLIANT

Why did we ever out-source call centers?

jonesMUFCforever

PROLIANT wrote: »

Why did we ever out-source call centers?

Greed and money!
Call centres in India pay a pittance in wages compared with this country.

dorien

there is a freephone alternative to the 0845724724 call centre number - its 08003899905 and I usually get someone in England. If you go to"saynoto0870.com it will give you alternate numbers for various abbey departments (credit cards/banking etc) . Hope this helps.

Mel999_2

I had £5000 stolen from my Abbey business account yesterday. I've been told that it will take over 7 days for Abbey to look into this as they have "resource issues".

Surely time is of the essence in these cases??

Dipak

Sorry to be the brunt of bad news but my close family friend had nearly £15k taking from their account in Sept 2008. Again it was with Abbey, do you think there is a flaw in the security?

Also one thing to be aware of if that Abbey will delay you as much as possible when it comes to paying it back to you. My advise if be on guard and keep chasing. If that dont work follow their complaints procedure and make it offical.

Hope thats helpful to you all.

D