Cruel Bitcoin con cost me £82,532 but HSBC refuses to refund me

LAST summer I was tricked into transferring my life savings to criminals posing as cryptocurrency brokers. My friends had told me that lots of people were investing in Bitcoin and doing very well, so I found an online firm claiming to offer Bitcoin and entered my details.

I was then contacted by a number of firms. One assigned me a broker called Alex who requested an initial £250 sign-up fee. This was blocked by my bank, Lloyds, as it was destined for an account in Eastern Europe.

Alex advised me to open an account at HSBC. Over the next few months she telephoned me daily advising me to invest more.

I made six payments from my Barclaycard totalling £9,500 and paid £82,532 from my HSBC account.

The fraudster told me I needed to hand over another £27,000 or I would lose all my money, so I asked my brother for a loan. He became suspicious and confirmed that it was a scam with Action Fraud and the Financial Conduct Authority. Barclaycard refunded me but HSBC is refusing.

T. E., London.

THIS scam is a terrifying example of how vulnerable people can be exploited by cruel criminals who always seem to be one step ahead of the banks.

I spoke to your family about your experience at great length. They told me you are in your 70s and your memory is not as good as it once was. You were bombarded with calls encouraging you to invest more, which you did on the promise of solid returns.

The final request of £27,000 was to ‘unlock the blockchain’, a term you did not understand, but you believed it was necessary to protect your investment.

Barclaycard refunded the £9,500 without question, but it took more than four months of back and forth before HSBC agreed to reimburse the full £82,532.

Initially the bank refused on the basis that it had contacted you on several occasions to check you knew where the payments were going. Then it offered you just £8,000. I argued that you were utterly taken in by the crypto-criminals and believed you were making sound investments. I repeatedly requested transcripts of the calls where it claims to have checked the payments with you, but these were never sent to me.

It should have been up to HSBC to warn you about such scams based on its knowledge of how fraudsters operate.

A spokesman says: ‘We take very great care to consider personal circumstances in cases like these, including factors which may affect decision-making at the time.

‘While we’re satisfied that we acted correctly in respect of the information we had at the time, in light of new information, and as a gesture of goodwill, we have reimbursed Mr E the funds lost.’ MY SON is in HMP Usk and he asked me to buy a book for him — Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide To Joy by Sadhguru. He said it could be purchased only through Waterstones, as per prison rules.

I ordered it online and was told Royal Mail tried to deliver the parcel, but it was refused. The prison checked the CCTV footage and no parcel was delivered.

I tried to contact Waterstones but the phones aren’t manned and emailing didn’t work. I have written to head office and have had no reply. The book cost £19.99, which is a lot of money for me to lose as an 80-year-old.

H. K., Gloucestershire.

BIG-NAME firms have used the pandemic as an excuse for poor customer service — and this is no different. Waterstones says its customer support lines are closed as its offices are not yet fully reopened. It is unclear why staff can’t work from home as they do in other customer support teams.

The bookshop says it is taking longer than normal to respond to queries due to the volume of online orders. But it has now agreed to arrange for a new order to be sent, at no extra charge. Its team will be in touch. I TOOK out HomeServe boiler cover in December 2010, two years after having an appliance installed. I’ve renewed each year and paid £405.72 for this year’s premium in December.

In March I had a problem with the boiler and successfully claimed to have a part replaced. However, just a few months later another fault developed and I called HomeServe again.

The engineer said he needed to go to collect another part, but never came back. He called the next day to say the boiler was beyond economic repair. My policy was cancelled and I was given just £200. A new boiler would cost at least £1,000, so how can this be fair?

I. W., Cheshire.

BOILERS do not last for ever. Most will break down when they are between ten and 15 years old, so 12 years is not a bad innings.

You say that HomeServe’s terms and conditions were not clear on what ‘beyond economic repair’ (BER) meant. I had a look at the terms online, which say a boiler is BER if the total cost of the parts needed to fix it exceeds 85pc of the retail cost of the boiler or one of a similar make and model.

HomeServe would have replaced the boiler if it was less than seven years old, but yours was almost twice this age. The £200 towards a new boiler is what you are entitled to under the terms.

But after I contacted the firm it refunded you for the months of cover for which you will no longer be eligible — an extra £202.86 — as a goodwill gesture, as you have been a longstanding customer.

ASK TONY IS BACK NEXT WEEK