Hackers strip bank account of Earl’s ex
The scenario should send shivers down the spine of anyone who has a bank account in switzerland. Victoria Chadwick, the former Countess of Normanton, is suing her bank in Gstaad after she claims it transferred £93,000 of her money to fraudsters.
her account was cleared out in five transactions to banks in Australia, the u.s. and two branches of NatWest in London. the first she says she knew of it was when her swiss bank manager called her as she was on a day out with her grandchildren in Battersea Park.
‘he said he had been trying to get hold of me to ask if it was all right that he had made several bank transfers,’ Victoria, who was married to the earl of Normanton for 30 years, tells me.
‘I asked him: “What transfers?” I was absolutely shocked. I became hysterical. You can imagine.’
that was eight months ago. since then, despite the involvement of the fraud squad in London and Interpol, she has not received a penny from saanen Bank.
‘the fraud squad told me that accounts the money was transferred to were emptied immediately,’ says the mother of three, whose son James, 30, will become the 7th earl of Normanton and will inherit the 7,000-acre somerley estate in hampshire.
her account was opened in 2004 when Vicki and her second husband — Angelina Ballerina publisher tim Chadwick — were dividing
diary@dailymail.co.uk their time between switzerland and London. Vicki says she would email the bank to transfer funds. ‘It was always for relatively small amounts for housekeeping and if anything appeared unusual, the bank would always contact me.’
But she claims she was hacked last year and a fraudster instructed the bank to move virtually all her funds. says Vicki: ‘the sums were huge and red flags should have immediately flashed up. the bank manager says he did email me but as my email had been hacked I never received it.’
since then, she has spent £25,000 trying to recover her money. ‘If it were a British bank, I would have almost immediately been refunded,’ says Vicki, who previously sued the wealth management division of another swiss bank, uBs, for breach of duty after £650,000 of her divorce settlement from Lord Normanton was lost, she claims, because of poor advice.
says saanen’s chief executive Jurg von Allmen: ‘Our clients’ affairs are secret so I cannot comment.’
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