Money stolen from account twice - bank refusing to refund second amount

[Simmy]

My housemate has had money stolen from her bank account on two occasions now. The first amount (£39) was taken and she told her bank, who setup a new account for her and refunded her the money. She was told to remove any money from her account and then ask to have it closed.

A couple of weeks later a 2nd amount (£49) was stolen and the bank are now saying she has to pay that amount. There was no money in the account at the time so it has gone £49 into her overdraft.

Are the banks allowed to do this? Has anyone had experience with this and is there a way out of paying them the money? I know it's only a minimal amount compared to some of the horror stories you hear with money being stolen, but it seems unfair to have to pay it. Why the bank didn't halt all transactions on the account I don't know.

 

[Indy500]

Inside job? What method was the money taken by, and what did the fraud team at the bank tell her?

 

[Heliospherez]

Did she close the account like they asked her too...? Or was the money stolen from the new account.

If she failed to close the account that had the fraudulent transactions on it (like they suggested) then she may be liable. They may not have blocked transactions on the account as they were waiting for her to move her money out and then request them to close it (like they asked her too)

But from your post, I'm unsure if it was the original account, or the second one they set up for her.

 

[NoIdea]

What sort of account is it? If its a visa or mastercard, perhaps a chargeback is in order for fraud?

If its a bank account [current account] and visa delta do a chargeback, if its switch/maestro then there is a chargeback rule for that also.

 

[Simmy]

The money was taken from the original account on both occasions. She did not close the account (she simply didn't get around to it) but she did move her money to her new account which is why the balance was at £0. I think she assumed no further transactions could take place.

 

[Simmy]

It's a Barclays current account and the card used was a Visa Debit.

A chargeback sounds like the way forward. If this was a possibility though, wouldn't the bank have suggested this instead of making her pay the second amount? I'll get her to ask them about it though.

 

[killsta]

The money was taken from the original account on both occasions. She did not close the account (she simply didn't get around to it) but she did move her money to her new account which is why the balance was at £0. I think she assumed no further transactions could take place.

That's the killer piece of info there.

She'll probably need to pay it back as she didn't follow the banks procedure.....

 

[SiriusB]

Couldn't the bank have moved the money and closed the old account themselves?

 

[Simmy]

You'd think so wouldn't you. They told her to cancel any standing orders and move the money - something which they could do with a few clicks.

 

[Phil W]

If she's 100% it wasn't her, tell her to put a claim in for fraud, bank will say "oh we will have to involve the police" etc etc, if she's got nothing to worry about then tell them to carry on

 

[Vixen]

Why would the bank tell her to close her account if the transactions came off a debit card? That's not normal procedure at all for debit card fraud, normally the card is stopped and that's it.

 

[Rich_L]

My spidey-sense says there's more to this...

 

[drunkenmaster]

It's pretty simple, she can say to them she didn't have time to close the account but surely the fraud department should have locked the account anyway and done the transfer for her.

Then again, when she knew someone had her account details and didn't get around to closing it I can fully see why the bank aren't too keen to accept reliability.

Frankly your friend and the bank should pay half each, for both being as stupid as each other, I can't believe the bank didn't lock the account when they knew someone had the details, cards should have been canceled immediately so it couldn't actually be used again, its pretty much the most basic course of action to take when someones got card details.

 

[DreXeL]

Why would the bank tell her to close her account if the transactions came off a debit card? That's not normal procedure at all for debit card fraud, normally the card is stopped and that's it.

Indeed.

I had this happen to me in the summer of this year, all they did was cancel the offending card, and issue a new one (and refunded all the money within a couple of weeks).

No need to close the account at all

 

[AGD]

My spidey-sense says there's more to this...

This is what I am thinking...

 

[Jono8]

The money was taken from the original account on both occasions. She did not close the account (she simply didn't get around to it) but she did move her money to her new account which is why the balance was at £0. I think she assumed no further transactions could take place.

big fail on her part to be honest.

 

[Adam]

My girlfriend is having an ongoing battle with Barclays over fraud committed locally in a petrol station outside trading hours. It gets to a point where you must admit defeat and get the financial ombudsman involved.

 

[Amnesia]

can they not trace who has taken the money ?
lazy on your friends part but surely if she has told them that she didnt authorize the transaction then its fraud.

 

[NoIdea]

If this was fraud then the fraud dept should have closed teh account and stopped the card. They should have immediately issued new cards to the cardholder.

Tell her to close the account is simply swallocks. They are barclays, they can close the account themselves. A chargeback IS the only viable option.

 

[Dolph]

The money was taken from the original account on both occasions. She did not close the account (she simply didn't get around to it) but she did move her money to her new account which is why the balance was at £0. I think she assumed no further transactions could take place.

Responsibility failure on her part then, why should the bank pay for that?

Whether the bank could have taken alternative action isn't really relevant if they gave her all the instructions she needed to prevent future occurances and she didn't follow them up.