Banks drag feet on scams
YOU would like to think that should you ever have the ill fortune to need to call your bank’s fraud team they would act with a sense of urgency.
Ideally, someone would hit a big red emergency button to stop any cash leaving your account.
Then, you’d expect them to be on the phone like a shot to the other bank trying to claw back what could well be your entire life’s savings.
It’s unfathomable to think that their response might actually be to casually drop the receiving bank a line a few days, or even weeks, after the event.
Yet, as we reveal on page 36, this is the experience of our readers.
As the Ombudsman points out, banks know all too well just how quickly fraudsters move to drain a victim’s account.
From there, they move the money on relentlessly until it is effectively laundered to the point of legitimacy and is impossible to claw back. Waiting even just a few extra minutes — let alone hours — before making a phone call can be the difference between rescuing a victim’s money and not.
Industry guidelines are maddeningly vague when it comes to how fast a bank should act.
It seems that the general consensus is ‘within two hours’. But in this digital age, this is utterly ridiculous.
Banks need to be acting in minutes not hours — and never days — to have a chance of taking on these extremely sophisticated scammers.
Since we launched our Stop The Bank Scammers campaign in September we have been inundated with emails and letters from other victims — each with a more terrifying story than the next.
We have reported on a number of important victories, but stories such as John Godden’s on page 41 show us what we are up against and how much work banks still have to do.
It is very good news that they are trialling a new system to trace stolen money and working with telecoms giants to stop scam texts, but there are many more initiatives banks and ministers