Really need advice here - bank account fraud

[daisydotandgertie]

Our bank accounts have been emptied by some fraudsters.

They accessed it via the telephone banking system (had 2 tries which were wrong, and then successfully got through).

Once they were in, they extended our overdraft limit, transferred the contents of our savings account into the current account and then transferred pretty much the whole lot away into their own account.

They've also taken some more money out in the form of internet purchases.

We have been talking to the bank for 2 hours this morning about it and I am horrified by what has gone on. Does anyone know where I can find out our rights or the bank's obligation?

The bank have said they will investigate the matter, but really haven't been very helpful. There are direct debits which need to come out, but the bank have said they may not be honoured because there isn't enough money in the account and they can't extend the overdraft because they have no proof we are who we say we are! (Oh, if only they'd applied that logic with the fraudster).

The bank have also said it looks as though there has been a complete identity theft so we should beware.

To top it off, not only have the bank allowed someone to steal all of our money, they said the only way we could arrange a temporary overdraft extension was to go to our local branch with 2 forms of ID. They said the branch shut at 1pm.

The branch is more than 15 miles away, so we hotfooted it to the town with our ID and arrived with 15 mins to spare only to find the branch shuts at 12.30. A waste of time and petrol.

This bank is not helping us very much at the moment.

Does anyone know about the banks obligation to us? To keeping our money safe and making sure they don't allow someone to steal it?

Same thing happened to us last year only it was via the internet, they did exactly the same taking £5000, I contacted the Halifax and went to see them that morning, my Daughter asked them if transaction was to another Halifax account and they said yes, they told me not to worry as I would get the money back, I did get it back a few weeks later but it was bloody awful as both my husband?s wages and mine go into the back account monthly so we were left with no money until they sorted it out.

3LF - how horrific for your DS. It must have been terrifying. That is a whole new league of awfulness.

I've dug out the numbers for the banking code people, the ombudsman and anyone else I can think of. The phones here will be very busy on Monday.

I have a horrible feeling it will take weeks to resolve. Abbey said the internet fraud will be quite quick to deal with, but the telephone fraud may take some time. They will be comparing tapes (all phone calls are taped) to check whether or not the villain's voice is the same as my DH's!

Change your banking to First Direct,i am sure they are offering £100 to change to them too atm.

There is a big difference between someone being robbed by being forced to empty their bank account at knifepoint and someone hacking into someone's account. One is armed robbery, the other is fraud. In the case of the armed robbery, the victim is the person threatened, which is the person. In the case of the fraud, the victim is technically the bank. The police will not give you a crime number, as they are required to take the report from the bank, as after their investigation, they will end up returning your money, which leaves them out the money, making them the technical victim. I know it seems odd, but that's the way it works. The police used to take the reports from the account holders, but that changed approximately 3 years ago.

Do change your account, but (sorry if this is obvious) only after this has been sorted. If they think they're losing you they'll have less incentive to sort things out.

Threatening to go public might work, but you'll need to do so to someone sufficiently senior to see this as a problem. The call centre operative probably won't care. You could try Radio 4's Moneybox, or the money supplement advice column of one of the broadsheets.

At the moment, we don't feel there's anything worth going public with. The problem is so widespread that our problems are far from unusual.

Of course, if we find that getting the money back isn't treated with enough urgency by the bank; or they make life very difficult for us while they do so, than that is a different kettle of fish.

As you say, it is very important to find the right person to go public to, or even complain to; a call centre operator or manager is just not going to give us the result we are after.

With as much respect to weekend staff as I can muster, weekends are just not the best time to resolve a problem like this.

So, we will be going to our local branch and staying there until we get a sensible course of action out of them. One which means we are able to survive until they verify what has happened and return our money.

We will prepare a new account in the meantime, with the intention of moving to it once the problem is resolved. At the moment, we can't flounce away from the Abbey ... they have lost all of our money!

Abbey are rubbish. My niece's fiancé's account was cleared out just before he was about to pay a few thousand pounds for their honeymoon abroad.
They wouldn't investigate until he went to the local paper. Would never, ever bank with them!