How many criminals does Barclays serve?

Mr Eggleston, who runs an accountancy business, said his assistant would have had no reason to be suspicious of the email as he often made such requests.

He said the fraudster appeared to have timed the attack for when he was away on business.

“I don’t know how long they had been watching communications between myself and my assistant,” said Mr Eggleston. “It was timed for when I had money in my account from the sale of a property. They may have had access to my digital calendar to see I was out of the office.”

It was only on closer inspection that they saw underneath the displayed name that the email address was not his own. In an effort to uncover the criminal he sent another email back requesting alternative accounts to receive other payments. Mr Eggleston was shocked to find the two accounts provided were also with Barclays.

He said: “Barclays has allowed these criminals to open and run these accounts. There are at least three in this case: how many more criminals is it providing services to?”

Mr Eggleston reported the crime to his own bank, C Hoare & Co, while a colleague contacted Action Fraud, the national cybercrime reporting service.

He also tried to contact Barclays but was told that as he was not a customer a report could not be made.

“I couldn’t even get past the first page of security because I didn’t have a Barclays account,” he said.

Using his contacts, Mr Eggleston managed to get the email address of a senior member of staff at Barclays to report the crime.

However, he said he found Barclays “unresponsive and unhelpful” despite the fact that it was “running accounts used for fraudulent activities”.

Barclays said that as soon as Mr Eggleston’s bank contacted it on March 16 it attemptedmpted to recover funds from the fraudster’sraudster’s account. However, the account count had been drained the day the payment was made, February 17.

All three accounts unts were closed by Barclays shortly tly afterwards.

A spokesman for the bank said the accountss had been operating for a numberumber of years and theirr use demonstratedd “genuine spend”. . The bank added that it was satisfieded the appropriate documentation was provided when the accountsnts were opened.

Fraud experts reckon such accounts are likely to be “mule e accounts”, whichh are opened by genuine ne customers and later taken over by criminals to receive stolen funds. In some cases the original account is opened by a student or temporary British resident who is later – perhaps when they are leaving the country – persuaded to “sell” the account to a fraudster for cash.

Your Money asked Barclays why its systems did not raise a query over such a large payment being made into the account and withdrawn again in such a short period. It declined to answer.

As is the usual course in such disputes, Barclays suggested that Mr Eggleston’s bank should have questioned the transaction. It has refused to reimburse any of the money.

A spokesman said: “This scam is a tragic case of criminal theft by a fraudster impersonating Mr Eggleston in an email to an employee. We acted swiftly to recover any funds that remained in Barclays accounts at the time this was reported by Mr Eggleston’s bank. We hope that the police urgently investigate this matter and bring the criminal to justice.”

Barclays added that non-customers could report fraud using social media channels such as Twitter, or via several phone numbers found on its website.

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ca cr offered partial refunds – Mr Krikor received £300 when his laptop failed to arrive.

In what appears to be an increasingly common ploy, the criminal was an expert at buying time. There were significant gaps between when the transactions were made and when the five victims reported the incident to their banks. By the time they did so the money was gone.

TSB said it first became aware of potentially suspicious activity on the account on February 7 and closed it the next day. By this time at least £19,657 of fraudulently obtained funds had passed in and out of the account.

Telegraph Money was told by TSB that the account had been recently opened. In response to our questions as to why its systems did not flag up these large transactions as suspicious, TSB said the amounts weren’t “necessarily cause for alarm”.

A spokesman for the bank said: “TSB has rigorous checks in place to

‘Barclays was unhelpful despite the fact that it was running accounts used for fraudulent activities’