By Ruth Sunderland

asked me to submit my payment details again.

At the last minute I checked the order number on the email against my Amazon account and realised it was bogus. I also refuse to bank online – despite constant blandishments to do so – until I am persuaded that fraud safety nets are vastly improved.

The banks expect us to exist in a permanent state of hypervigilance and instead of doing their utmost to protect our accounts and help defrauded customers they eschew responsibility. Victims are blamed even though they did not recklessly divulge information, but were inveigled into doing so by sophisticated and practised criminals.

All they are guilty of is an unguarded moment – hardly a crime that deserves to be punished with the loss of thousands of pounds of savings. Technically, the banks may be within their rights, but their stance is unsympathetic, unethical – and yes, immoral.

They boast of state- of- the- art detection systems that are supposed to identify and block unusual transactions. So when these fail to prevent push-payment fraud, they must share in the responsibility.