Fighting for your money

Barclays is refusing to refund me £5,000 stolen by fraudsters while I was swimming

QItold Barclays Bank about the fraudulent use of my stolen debit card, but it did not believe me – and now I am down by more than £5,000.

On August 20 at about 10.50am, I noticed that my debit card was missing from my wallet, and a few minutes later the Barclays mobile banking app disappeared from my iPhone. I was at my sports club buying coffee for friends, arriving there at 8.35am and getting home shortly before midday.

I contacted Barclays when I got home and it transpired that at 11.13am, £2,000 had been withdrawn from my savings account, and two withdrawals of £500 each had been made from my current account. These all took place at my local Barclays branch – when I had been at the sports club.

Around the same time, an unauthorised payment of £2,394 was made to a phone retailer in Slough I had never heard of. There was another transaction of £5,000, but luckily Barclays rejected it.

Barclays had sent two messages at 10.13am to my mobile phone: a onetime transaction code, and another message informing me that there had been a change of mobile phone number linked to my account. I was swimming at the club at that time and did not see the messages until around midday, when I came home and spotted them on my iPad.

I then had numerous calls with Barclays’ fraud team. The same day I was refunded £ 1,000, representing the two £ 500 withdrawals from a cash machine at the branch.

The next day I was refunded the £2,394 that had been paid to the phone shop. It informed me that the £2,000 taken from my savings account was being treated as “complex fraud” because extra security would have been needed to be able to take out that money. I am completely baffled by how the fraudster got hold of my personal information.

On September 6, I received two letters from Barclays saying that it did not consider my claim as fraudulent, so would not be refunding the £2,000 savings. Plus, it had claimed back the £3,394 it had previously refunded.

I am a 74-year- old retired banker, and have spent my entire working life in finance. I have banked with Barclays since 1963, when I joined them as a junior clerk. I am extremely upset by their decision, to put it mildly. I am also massively insulted by their implication that I am involved with the fraud myself.

– EM, Cockfosters

AAs

a life-long Barclays customer and retired banking professional, it appears that Barclays turned its back on you in your moment of need. Such large payments and withdrawals made in quick succession were out of character for you, especially ones made from your savings account, and you felt more could have been done to protect you. At my request, Barclays reopened your case. After a couple of weeks, the bank came back and said it was sticking to the original decision of rejecting your claim, because from what it could see the transactions had been authorised by someone using the original mobile linked to your account.

You were not happy with this response – and neither was I. You felt the finger of suspicion was on you. Barclays wrote to you to say this was not its intention and apologised.

However, the mystery of your missing money remained, as Barclays could not fathom how the fraudster got hold of the information required to take over your account.

You insisted you had never shared your card’s Pin with a soul and your mobile had been in your possession at the time of the disputed transactions. The only time your phone was out of sight was when it was in the locker at the sports club. This was when the one-time passcode was sent, and you did not see it because you were in the pool.

Although your hopes initially sank

The only time your phone was out of sight was when it was in the locker at the sports club

after Barclays’ second rejection of your claim, you and your wife started to rack your brains about how the Pin and your phone might have fallen into the wrong hands.

You began to wonder whether you had been watched in the changing rooms at the club, as it transpired that you were using the same numbers for your locker as you do for unlocking your phone. It also happens to be the last four digits of an old home phone number. In obtaining this four- digit sequence, a fraudster could have potentially accessed the locker, your phone and your banking app.

An additional mystery you mentioned was that your Rolex watch had been in the same locker as your wallet. Why would a crook not have stolen this timepiece worth thousands of pounds at the same time as your debit card? Your conclusion was that leaving the watch would actually have helped buy time for a fraudster to hurry down to the bank branch and carry out the transactions. Had the watch been taken you would have noticed instantly on opening the locker that thieves had been at work.

Although all of this was just a theory, it seemed plausible to me. I suggested that you pass it on to the Barclays fraud team for consideration. This prompted Barclays to reopen your case for a second time.

After two more weeks, and a thorough re- examination of events, the bank came back with some good news. Although it was still not clear exactly how your Pin had been compromised, the bank said that after receiving the further information from you, it would refund your £5,394 losses after all.

A Barclays spokesman said: “We have every sympathy with our customer, who was the victim of a sophisticated fraud, and have reimbursed him for the full amount that was lost.” You were relieved that my intervention finally brought the resolution you were looking for, although you remained concerned about how fraudsters were able to take over your account.

Your experience is a stark reminder that we all need to take great care over our Pins. On this subject, Tony Neate, of the Get Safe Online website, said: “Don’t use the same Pin for more than one card or account and select a random sequence of digits that don’t relate to you in any way. Avoid numbers connected to a birthday, wedding day or address, and side-step obvious patterns such as 0000, 1234 or 9876.”

Richard Emery of 4Keys International, a fraud consultancy, admitted it can be a struggle to remember several codes. He said: “I have a terrible memory but tell everyone I have my Pin number on the front of every card I own. They look at me aghast until I tell them what I mean. I pick a sequence from the 16 numbers that appear on each card in a particular order and apply this to all my cards. Each card number is different and so is the Pin. I just need to look at the card to know my Pin.”

Ernie has lost my winnings that went to wrong bank

QI was lucky enough to win £50 on the Premium Bonds in July. Unfortunately, the prize was sent to a Virgin

Money account I closed in 2015. I have reached an impasse as NS&I says the money has left the account and Virgin Money says it has not received it. How can the money disappear in these days of electronic banking? – JB, London AI

asked NS&I to try to locate your winnings, as these should have bounced back from your closed account automatically. After a couple of weeks, it came back and said that when the money could not be deposited, a trace should have been put on the payment. But this had apparently not happened. NS&I has now paid you the missing £50, plus another £100 as a goodwill gesture.

It’s important to make sure you let organisations know of any change of account or other important details such as addresses, phone numbers or email contacts.