10 weeks to get my stolen money back?!

[ricky1981]

I've recently returned from holiday to find my maestro debit card has been cloned or the details stolen and someone has spent £1100 of my money. Obviously I contacted HSBC straight away and they have stopped the card. There are three dodgy transactions - one an £8 congestion charge (i presume to check the card/details worked), £900 to capital one and £230 to sygma bank (whoever they are). HSBC have said they need to investigate each of these which I understand (I did point out that I was in the US for two weeks so the odds on me needing to pay a congestion charge were nil and also that I dont have a capital one account). But they are saying it could take 10 weeks to do this and return my money, does this not seem an inordinately long time?!

I am planning to go to my local branch and complain because whilst I do not need the money urgently I think it is ridiculous that they think 10 weeks is an acceptable amount of time for me to be without a large sum of money.

Does anyone know if I have any rights to expect a quicker resolution?

 

[dbailey10]

Not quite answering your question but just thought that i'd point out that you can take any complaint you have with your bank to the Financial Ombudsman Service, http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ if you are not happy with the way your bank handles it

 

[Skyfire]

Took me 8 weeks to get my £60 back from a dodgy ATM from the same bank. Oh, and on the first investigation they denied all knowledge So I contacted the ATM vendor directly, spoke to a nice lass who backed me up with more evidence

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Smile managed to return my money after a few days, they stopped the card after a few dodgy transactions were flagged in Morocco!

 

[platypus]

It will probably take them 2 weeks maximum to trace your money, less if they worked on it with any sense of urgency.

The rest of that time it will sit in their clearing account to be used for their interest and investment

 

[nin9abadga]

providing you get it back i wouldn't have thought it was such an issue? if you really really need it then go for it (i would) but if you don't and can get by, why stress yourself? unless there is a time limit on the paper trail and by dragging their heals you lose out ofc.

 

[Jonny69]

Now imagine if you needed that money desperately. Banks are scum and the people who run them have no compassion.

I reckon they make their families comply with set procedures at home.

 

[ricky1981]

providing you get it back i wouldn't have thought it was such an issue? if you really really need it then go for it (i would) but if you don't and can get by, why stress yourself? unless there is a time limit on the paper trail and by dragging their heals you lose out ofc.

I'm not overly stressed about it, I just think its taking the mick to say it will take 10 weeks to trace 3 transactions. If it was £50 then fair enough but its over a grand of my money that if I did need it I can't get.

 

[Adam]

Now imagine if you needed that money desperately. Banks are scum and the people who run them have no compassion.

I reckon they make their families comply with set procedures at home.

Scum? Bit far isn't it...

Banks have procedures that need to be followed otherwise they would be open to fraudulent claims. What about how much tax banks generate for the economy, how many jobs thy create? 9/100 of the FTSE 100 are banks.

Your comments are ridiculous

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

I had £201 spend using my card details. Lloyds TSB refunded it within 2 weeks.

 

[The $6m Dan]

I bet it wouldn't take 10 weeks if it was their £1100

 

[stoofa]

Now imagine if you needed that money desperately. Banks are scum and the people who run them have no compassion.

I reckon they make their families comply with set procedures at home.

Yer - If I phone up my bank and say "All the payments from the past 3 days are false and I'd like my money back" I expect it all back the same day, no questions asked.

There is procedure and that procedure is to make sure people aren't making fraud claims.
Don't blame the banks for this - blame those people who make the wrongful claims.
What hasn't helped the OP in this particular case is the fact he's reporting the issue some time after the event.
I appreciate he has only just found out due to being away, however that is probably why the bank are dragging their heels.
Phone up and say "Yesterday, fraud charge" things will move a lot quicker than "Two weeks ago, fraud charge".

 

[Arpegius]

I had £700 taken from my account in various sums. I think they either cloned my card or got details off the web. Thing is you'd have to be pretty smart to do that but then they spent the money on really easily tracable things like insurance, skytv, t-mobile and a parking ticket.
I phoned up Lloyds and within 2 days had the money back in my account as they classed it as an urgent case as I couldn't pay my rent. Can't complain really, excellent service.

 

[Spursboy]

Scum? Bit far isn't it...

Banks have procedures that need to be followed otherwise they would be open to fraudulent claims. What about how much tax banks generate for the economy, how many jobs thy create? 9/100 of the FTSE 100 are banks.

Your comments are ridiculous

Doesn't really mean that they are nice people though...

 

[ricky1981]

Yer - If I phone up my bank and say "All the payments from the past 3 days are false and I'd like my money back" I expect it all back the same day, no questions asked.

There is procedure and that procedure is to make sure people aren't making fraud claims.
Don't blame the banks for this - blame those people who make the wrongful claims.
What hasn't helped the OP in this particular case is the fact he's reporting the issue some time after the event.
I appreciate he has only just found out due to being away, however that is probably why the bank are dragging their heels.
Phone up and say "Yesterday, fraud charge" things will move a lot quicker than "Two weeks ago, fraud charge".

Sorry, should have been clearer - I have been away for two weeks but the transactions only showed on my statement yesterday so they were told immediately. The Sygma transaction was not even showing on my account but was "being processsed" and they could not stop it

 

[Adam]

Doesn't really mean that they are nice people though...

How can a bank not be a nice person?

Banks are a business, some people seem to forget this.

 

[Spursboy]

I buy a piece of hardware from OcUK, but return it for some reason. They say it will take 10 weeks for my money to be returned to me, despite them already having the hardware back. This doesn't happen (if it does, its extremely rare).

Banks, on the otherhand, get away with these actions daily. They have the privilege of being able to abuse their position (as money holders/lenders).

Of course, they are trying to make a profit, otherwise there would be no point. But surely, stealing (effectively what this is) money of people for a limited period of time isn't the way to do it. Or am i being naive here?

 

[Vixen]

Did they say it would take 10 weeks, or did they say that was a maximum? I spent some time in fraud a couple of years ago, and we had to give customers guidelines as to the maximum amount of time it would take for an investigation. Most of the time it was completed in less time, and if more was required, extra letters had to be sent out detailling how much longer they expected it to be.

10 weeks does seem a long time, however you have to take into consideration how busy their fraud department are. There are times when there will be significantly more going through the department than others. Also, the people who work there are just human like everyone else - they get sick, and take holidays, which will obviously effect investigations.

EDIT: banks don't make money on fraudulent transaction. They lose out, as most of the time it's not retrieved from the source and they have to pay it back to the customer. Financially, it's in their best interest to return it quickly.

 

[Jonny69]

I like the word scum, it really gets people's backs up on this forum

 

[ricky1981]

They said upto 10 weeks so I asked if that was going to be an exaggeration and they said perhaps it would be 8-10.

I appreciate they are busy, etc etc but I know that if the company I work for had 10 week waiting periods (even in circumstances where the customer is 99% in the wrong) we wouldnt be operating as a business for that much longer.

Banks are a business and I have no issue with them making money out of me if I should choose to borrow it but this is my money that for all I know has been stolen due to HSBC's call centre staff selling my details!