Foster child stole our credit cards — and now we’re paying the price

MY WIFE and I have been foster carers for more than 11 years. In 2017 we fostered a teenage girl for three months.

In July I discovered she had stolen two credit cards — Barclaycard and Creation — and made online purchases and cash withdrawals. I immediately informed both banks.

Barclaycard refunded everything. But Creation said I breached their terms and conditions, which state the PIN should be memorised and kept secret and the notification destroyed as soon as it is received.

I am 64 with a poor memory and have several credit cards and bank accounts, plus online passwords. I couldn’t possibly memorise them all.

I kept the PIN and card behind a locked drawer in my private office.

Creation continue to charge me interest on the £1,909 she stole. I have paid £50 monthly for the past two years and still owe £1,400.

I had not used the card for several years before it was stolen and it had a zero balance.

Surely, Creation was negligent in not suspecting that a fraud had taken place when it was suddenly being used for so many online transactions in a short space of time!

S. H., by email. This is difficult, with arguments on both sides. We are expected to remember ludicrous amounts of passwords and numbers.

i did a quick count and got to well over 50 for everything from TV companies to utilities, shops, banks, local authority, email accounts, credit cards and investment companies — and, yes, i write many down.

But some we should take extra care with — and a PiN is one of them, especially if we have strangers living in the house.

You should not have kept your credit card and the PiN together.

You could put a false phone number into your address book that includes an important PiN.

however, i believe BNP Paribas (of which Creation is a subsidiary) has been heavy-handed in refusing to budge on your case, which i understand is now with the Financial Ombudsman service.

The bank says all the transactions were carried out with the PiN; you are not disputing this.

You have so far paid back more than £1,000, which i feel should be enough. You make a valid point about Creation’s fraud detection services. When i have tried to use a credit card for the first time after leaving it unused for a year or so, i have had to pass security checks.

i pressed for interest charges to be suspended until the FOs makes its ruling — and Creation agreed.

But the lesson here is if we no longer want a credit card, we should cancel the account, then cut up the card and throw it away. MY MOTHER died recently in hospital after suffering a fall. The police had to break into her home to help her and severed the telephone line.

While she was in hospital I tried to get the line restored but TalkTalk would not send an engineer because I did not have the account password. My mother did not have it either because my late father used to operate the account.

In the three years since my father died, TalkTalk has charged my mother over £50 a month for a landline alone: she does not use a computer, so the broadband aspect is useless.

J. B., by email. i Was sorry to hear your mother died while you were trying to resolve the issue. But i have decided to publish this letter because of serious points it raises.

You told TalkTalk about your mother’s vulnerable position and yet the numbskulls at their call centre wouldn’t help unless you could supply a password. This cannot be right. a TalkTalk spokesperson says: ‘TalkTalk takes matters of data protection extremely seriously and follows strict protocols to ensure customer data is securely handled. however, in this instance we should have treated the issue as an emergency welfare case and processed the request.’

in recognition of its mistakes made and anxiety caused Talktalk has waived the current invoice of £47.95 and offered £300 compensation, which i feel is just about fair.

Your complaint about your mother paying for broadband that she did not use is something i’ve come across with TalkTalk before; but TalkTalk does not provide a phone only service. OUR lounge ceiling was damaged by wind and rain coming in through the roof and we were advised it would take three weeks for it to be repaired.

Larger furniture was taken to storage while other items had to be stored in bedrooms.

Our claim for alternative accommodation was turned down as Bank of Scotland Home Insurance said we could live in our bedrooms for three weeks.

As a 71-year-old disabled person and with my wife also receiving medical treatment it would not have been practical.

During this period we had no hot water or electricity. I’ve been a customer with Bank of Scotland Home Insurance for more than 20 years and feel I could have been treated better.

W. B., Aberdeenshire. i’m afraid i’ve drawn a blank but i want to highlight Bank of scotland’s response. The letter from its so-called customer care department was callous in the extreme — not to mention barely literate.

i quote: ‘Whilst i appreciate your disability does make it more difficult for you to move around and would need a chair to sit on, we would only deem these circumstances as uncomfortable in this instance.’

how dare they make such a judgment! separately it dismissed your plea that you would have no heat or water.

as far as your claim regarding restricted accommodation is concerned, they said that ‘weather conditions did not meet storm damage requirements’.

Their one concession is to admit they should have made it clear initially that you were not eligible for alternative accommodation so have paid £50 to apologise.

i suggest that you find a new home insurer.