I have recently had a complete nightmare with Abbey personal banking that I really felt I have to share to make people aware that it really can happen to anyone.  I have an Abbey current account, ISA savings account and my mortgage is also with them.  I have been a customer of theirs for nearly ten years now.  This is briefly what happened to me over the last ten days:

What happened

I recently took out additional borrowing on my Abbey mortgage which was paid straight into my current account on the 20 March.  Coincidentally my husband and I were also paid our salaries (into the same account) on that day.

On Monday, 23 March I went into my local branch to transfer some funds from my ISA account into my current account which they did straight away (though actually they should have done this ten days earlier but hadn’t)!

On Wednesday, 25 March, completely unbeknownst to me, a person who has yet to be identified used my debit card details make two card payments over the phone (for some type of “mail order” transaction according to Abbey).  All that person needed apparently was my 16 digit card number, expiry date and security number.  These two transactions totalled £15,200 and completed wiped out all available funds from my current account.  Abbey did not ask for any additional security for the two transactions, the first of which occurred at around 12.15pm and the second of which happened three minutes later.

It would therefore appear that whoever has taken these funds has been able to check the funds available on the account as of 25 March – how they did this I have no idea and neither do Abbey it would seem

When I found out

I only discovered the above when I tried to use my debit card on the Friday morning and it was refused.  I initially made a call to the telephone banking centre and had a very confused conversation with an advisor. She tried to tell me the funds recently paid into my account had not cleared, and then was quite rude and cut me off!  I decided to go into my local branch which was when I was told about the above transactions.  I was informed at this time that the funds did not go out of the account immediately: they were held in a “withholding/clearing status” and were due to clear on 28 March.  The counter staff told me not to worry, they were sure the money would be credited back immediately as it was clearly fraud and a member of the branch staff would see me straight away to sort it out.

The member of staff then telephoned Abbey card disputes to ask them to stop the payments going out and was told:

• It is my word against theirs that the transactions were not done by me.
• They cannot put a stop on the transactions and therefore cannot stop the funds leaving the account because they have been “authorised” and it therefore there is an agreement with the merchant that the funds will be paid and they can’t go back on that.
• It could not actually be reported to their fraud team until the funds have left the account.
• When the funds have left the account and it is reported it could take three/four weeks to be investigated and for us to get our money back.
• They could not give us an emergency extension to our overdraft until they had a fraud reference/dispute number.

I have to say that the branch staff were as astonished as me and I tried to explain that I had no funds available to me, couldn’t pay my bills, mortgage etc. But they basically told me there was nothing they could do.

Shock

You can image my shock at the whole situation and when I returned home I rang Abbey again but was basically given the same answer.  I rang my local police station and reported the matter to them, but they said there was little they could do until Abbey contacted them.

On Saturday, 26 March the funds cleared from the account and I telephoned the Abbey dispute team to report this (as I had been told to).  I was given two dispute references and told that they would post out an indemnity form that I would have to sign and return. They also said that until they received it back they would not be able to start the investigation.

Again I was told it would take between three/four weeks to resolve.  I explained that in the meantime there were no funds available to me and the advisor said that she would put a note on the file to this effect and try and get someone to call on Monday (to date no-one has).

After another sleepless night I decided to fax a complaint letter to Abbey’s Chief Executive on the Monday morning.  I received a response to this on the Tuesday saying that would get back to me in 15 working days!!

On Monday, 28 March I went into my local branch again. The advisor phoned the investigations team at Abbey and they confirmed that the dispute had been logged with them but that the file had not actually been passed over as it was only logged on Saturday.  She then tried to obtain a temporary overdraft extension (as she had been told she could do on Friday) to then be told that this was not possible as the alleged fraud was a card transaction.

Again I was told that the investigation had to take its course. But this could take three/four weeks and there was nothing they could do in the meantime with regards to our lack of funds.

By Wednesday, 1 April I had still not received the indemnity form so I contacted them again.  This time I was told that this form could take up ten days to get to me meaning that in total it could be up to six weeks before I got my money back.

It was at this time that I contacted Jasmine at Moneymagpie.com and although usually there isn’t much that an outside organisation can do, this was something that could be dealt with through the press office. By close of business on Thursday the money was back in my account!

Who dunnit?

I subsequently discovered that my money was transferred to someone else’s personal HSBC account (someone I have never heard of and have no connection to me whatsoever).  HSBC have told me that there is something very strange about these transactions as they are not “mail order card” transactions and it is not actually possible for a card payment to be made to transfer funds from one personal account to another (as has actually happened here).

During my numerous telephone conversations with Abbey one of their customer service advisors did say that she didn’t think it was actually a card payment over the phone as originally described to me and that it did not actually appear to have been authorised.

I don’t think I will ever get to the bottom of what happened, but one thing is for sure: Abbey’s security is extremely poor and although their in-branch teams tried their best, their “customer service” is absolutely non-existent.

The Moneymagpie team say…

Bank and identity fraud are on the up and it can happen to anyone. However there are easy things you can do to make sure you catch it quickly.

• Make sure you check your statements regularly and tally up your spending with what appears on the page.  If anything looks dodgy, get on the phone and sort it out.
• Check your credit record to make sure no one else is using your name for their own dodgy dealings. If you do have fraudulent marks on your record, you can remove them and clear your name.
• Always get a receipt when using a cash machine and make sure the withdrawals tally up against your bank statements.
• Instead of signing your credit card, write ‘Photo ID Required’ on the white strip and then show your driver’s license or passport whenever signing for your card. This way, if you card is stolen the thief cannot forge your signature to purchase goods.

Got any more ideas? Have you been a victim of fraud? Post your experiences below.