Fighting for your money ‘My mother was tricked out of £75,000 savings and Barclays would only return £17,500’

QDear Sally, On Dec 18 2020, my 83-year old mother, who is housebound and shielding due to Covid was a victim of a sophisticated phone scam and as a result was tricked into transferring £75,000 over two days from her Barclays account into the bank account of scammers. My mother is an intelligent woman but she was made to believe in a phone call that the people she was talking to were members of the National Crime Agency who were working with Barclays bank. She had no reason to think otherwise. My mother was coached in what to say and was made to believe that she was assisting entrapping a bank employee.

On the second day her suspicions were aroused and she alerted Barclays to the fraud.

My mother has been devastated by this incident, she has lost confidence as well as an enormous amount of money.

I have been appalled at the lack of customer care shown to my mother. Initially she was sent a reassuring letter dated Dec 19, that the bank would be in touch with an outcome in 15 days, but that in exceptional cases it may take up to 35 days.

After 35 days, she had heard nothing. I also called the bank but after being on hold for over an hour, gave up. On Feb 25, my mother made a further attempt and held on for 84 minutes before giving up. Then another two calls followed of 50 minutes each with no luck. On Feb 26 she tried calling again and finally managed to speak to the complaints department.

She was told the case had been closed and no further action was to be taken other than returning £17,500 of her lost savings and that a letter had been sent to that effect. This letter never arrived. From late February onwards she received many text messages from Barclays confusingly advising her that it was still investigating her case. This conflicting information caused further distress and understandably led to a lack of confidence in Barclays’ handling of this matter. Whilst the partial refund was appreciated, it is not adequate. The bank should do the right thing and reimburse her for the remaining sum lost. – KF, West Yorkshire A My postbag and inbox are sadly filled with cases like yours and it should not be this way. More must be done to protect all bank customers and particularly those who are vulnerable whether it is due to age, health, nervousness about technology or personal situation.

Even confident people who are on high alert to the fact that scammers are constantly in their midst can be caught unawares, so cunning and sweet talking are the crooks. More resources must be thrown at not only catching and convicting the criminals behind the swindles but at hindering the apparent ease they face when setting up bank accounts and abusing the phone and internet services to ply their trade. Without a dramatic shift people will lose confidence in the country’s banking arrangements. I feel angry and upset at reading all the cases I receive and particularly when I see that banks so often wash their hands of individuals because they have unwittingly followed the fraudster’s all too convincing instructions.

In your mother’s case I felt there was more that could have been done by Barclays to protect her from being hoodwinked. As well as that I was dismayed by the poor service she received in trying to get her fraud complaint heard and resolved in a timely manner.

I asked Barclays to look again at your mother’s experience to see if it would refund the remainder of her losses. A few days later, after investigating events, it came back and offered an extra £20,000, bringing the total refund to £37,500. This means she will have got back half of the total sum lost. In recognition of the lengthy wait she had in getting the case resolved, the bank

‘The only way you can avoid being conned by fraudsters is to put down the phone’

added £250. I was disappointed not to be the bearer of better news for your mother but pleased that the bank saw fit to offer more than it did at the outset. Although scarred by the whole experience your mother was delighted by the offer. She told me: “Your actions have given me back my self respect and made my bank balance feel better.”

A spokesman for Barclays said: “This was a tragic case of theft by criminals posing as genuine employees of the National Crime Agency; and we have every sympathy with our customer who was tricked into transferring funds. After careful consideration into the circumstances of this case, we have increased the funds to be returned and resolved this claim on a shared blame basis. We will support the police with any further inquiries, in order to bring these criminals to justice.”

Please, please, please dear readers, never act on any unexpected call, text or email where someone says they are from a trusted organisation like the police, National Crime Agency, bank, government division such as HM Revenue & Customs or DVLA, utility company or Royal Mail, and asks for payments or bank details or panics you into transferring funds out of your account “for safety’s sake”. No genuine organisation will ever call or text out of the blue to ask you to do this or use tricks such as suggesting you make a payment via the “friends and family” option on your online banking. Martyn James of online complaints service Resolver adds: “The only way you can avoid being conned by fraudsters is to put down the phone, ignore the text and delete the email. Then contact the business or organisation that’s “got in touch” using its official website contact details.”

ParcelHero added £57 to my £30 courier bill one month after delivery

QDear Sally, due to the pandemic we have not been able to visit my wife’s parents, including her 93-yearold father who is blind. His mobility has been a problem so we sent him a refurbished rollator like the one used by the late Captain Sir Tom Moore to do his 100 garden laps. We sent it via delivery service ParcelHero which subcontracted the job to UPS. We packed it carefully and weighed and measured the box adding some weight and length to our sums to ensure we paid enough.

The package was collected and the rollator arrived safely and was soon in use for strolls around his local village. I paid £30.76 for the delivery on my credit card on Feb 16. Imagine my surprise when a month later an extra £57.05 was debited with UPS telling me our measurements were wrong. This is totally unacceptable as no evidence has been provided of the incorrect measurements. When I complained it asked us to provide photographic evidence of the package we had sent – showing a tape measure on each side of the original package. This is obviously not available.

I feel I have been bullied into paying more and feel most upset as I am expected to accept the company is right without any proof, yet I am meant to provide proof.

A I got on to ParcelHero to ask why you had to pay this extra tariff more than a month after you had sent the package. A spokesman said yours was a “tricky” case and explained that UPS uses precise weighing equipment and lasers to measure packages, which in turn can lead to a weight adjustment and corresponding price increase.

Domestic customers like you don’t have this kind of equipment lying around at home but it was clear you had made strenuous efforts to ensure you weighed and measured your package and paid the right sum. As a gesture of goodwill, quite rightly, ParcelHero agreed to refund the extra £57.05. You told me you are grateful that this is all sorted out.

When organising a parcel to be picked up by any courier it can be sensible for people to take photos or video of the process, if they can, as a back up if there is a dispute.