PAY BACK FRAUD VICTIMS

BUT just £1 in every £4 was returned to customers. Money Mail’s Pay Back Fraud Victims campaign has called on banks either to track down stolen funds or to cover the losses themselves.

Experts say where banks are found to have allowed crooks to open accounts using fake IDs, they should be forced to take responsibility for any losses suffered by customers.

Money Mail has handed the list of 82 accounts to the City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority, which says it will contact all the banks involved.

Arun Chauhan, director of Tenet Compliance & Litigation, a law firm that provides advice on financial crime compliance, says: ‘These banks have allowed organised criminal gangs to abuse their systems and steal from thousands of victims. There are more than 80 accounts on this list and half of them are HSBC, which is extremely worrying.’

Banks are supposed to follow strict rules when opening a new account for a customer.

Under money laundering regulations, they must carry out so-called customer due diligence.

According to the rules, this includes verifying a customer’s identity using documents, data or information obtained from a reliable and independent source.

This is why your bank usually asks you to provide photo ID and proof of address before it will open any account. However, fraudsters are routinely getting around these checks.

The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation called Operation Arad to track down fraudsters who go on to scam online shoppers. The 82 accounts on the list obtained by Money Mail were uncovered as part of this operation. All were found to have been opened using fake IDs and documents.

The police are understood to have charged 62 people linked to the wider investigation and more accounts are expected to come under scrutiny.

Eight people connected to the 82 accounts have already been jailed for their part in the scam. Money Mail asked all nine banks how criminals were able to use counterfeit documents to get past their security. We also asked whether they would take responsibility for the losses that victims suffered as a result.

None admit responsibility for allowing fraudsters to open and operate accounts.

HSBC refuses to say how many payments the criminals received, how much they stole, if there was any money left, whether victims were reimbursed, or if the fraudulent accounts had been closed. A spokesman says the bank ‘worked hard’ to ‘identify and address the ever-changing techniques used by fraudsters’ and continually reviews its checks and processes.

Nationwide says it followed industry guidelines and staff are trained to spot ID documents that are obviously fake. But it admits it’s harder to identify the most sophisticated counterfeits.

The other banks refused to answer specific questions about