‘Disgrace’ of banks refusing to refund phone scam victims

BANKS are behaving ‘disgracefully’ by refusing refunds to victims of conmen, the former boss of a major lender said yesterday.

Peter Burt, who was chief executive of Bank of Scotland, said money stolen through ‘vishing’ should be returned to customers automatically.

Vishing is where fraudsters masquerading as bank staff telephone customers and tell them to transfer money to another account as soon as possible.

The victims – often old and vulnerable – are told their cash was at risk of cybercriminals but soon find it has vanished. The scam is a variant of ‘phishing’ using a voice on the phone instead of emails.

Even after the fraud has been discovered, many customers do not get their money back because the transfers were authorised by the bank.

Sir Peter urged such victims to take legal action. ‘Somebody needs to bring a law suit against banks that receive money from fraud and refuse to give it back,’ he

‘Determined to stop such crimes ’

said. ‘If I had been defrauded, I would bring a criminal charge against the bank.

‘A bank will, of course, say it carried out all the reasonable checks but I don’t think that’s good enough. It’s a disgrace.’

Sir Peter, who left Bank of Scotland in 2003 following its merger with Halifax, told The Sunday Times that banks were accomplices to fraud by opening accounts for conmen who, in most cases, provide false identification.

The British Bankers’ Association last year launched an awareness campaign called ‘Know Fraud, No Fraud’. It stressed that no bank will ever ask for a full PIN or other password by phone or email and staff will not call for a transfer to be authorised.

A spokesman said: ‘Banks are determined to stop such crimes. It is important cases are handled on a case-by-case basis and banks work with customers.’