Hi I have NC as this could be outing and please be gentle with me
I’m wondering if any of you lovely people have any advice apologies as this is long
My father 72 I would say a vulnerable person who is naive and gullible and carer to my mother who has Alzheimer’s and Dementia was contacted by phone last year by the National Lottery Centre asking him if he wanted to join a syndicate for the Irish Lottery
He very stupidly agreed and paid £700 for the year
Every two weeks or so he was then contacted by an account manager asking him if he wanted to join more syndicates for varying amounts of money
When he said he couldn’t afford it they would do a pre authorisation or a smaller amount to see what he could afford. Then they would ring back and ask to take that amount
. I believe that this phone call was recorded but the actual hard sell call wasn’t recorded . Over a period of a year he has used his life savings of around £25000 maybe more
Completely all gone from his account
While I accept that he has been the most stupid person ever and I want to kill him 😂 he is my father and murder isn’t legal so I’m stuck with him .
To be honest I am more annoyed at his bank Lloyds who never once queried these payments
My father has banked with Lloyd’s for 50 years and has never not once made any payments like this to anyone .
The only payment they have ever queried and refused to pay was his car insurance that legitimate and they stopped the payment and he had to go into the bank to authorise this payment and this was a few years ago .
So why on earth did they not stop or query any of these payments
From what I have read the banks have sophisticated fraud systems set up to alert them to unusual payments so did they not think that someone spending 2000 plus in one go every month a bit unusual
I’m asking because whenever I buy or do something that’s not within my spending pattern my card is stopped and I get a call or a text asking me if I have authorised this payment .
I couldn’t even use my card when on holiday recently as it was out of my usual spending pattern
On occasions stuff from Amazon has been cancelled because of the fraud alert
When googling them The
Lottery Centre is based in the Isle of Man and other elderly people have had exactly the same thing happen cold call and then regular amounts taken
I can’t call it a scam as he authorised the payments but like the others he was elderly and was pressured by hard sell to do so and is also a fucking idiot
However it’s the bank that I’m really annoyed with
Any advice on if I am able to complain to the bank about their lack prevention of unusual transactions on an account would be much appreciated