Originally Posted by
brian daley
Beware of thieves, rogues and Bank Staff
Some weeks ago I posted an item about nearly being scammed by a gang from Bombay ,who purported to be acting under instructions from the British Ministry of Justice. They were in possession of my bank details said they were contracted to recover any overcharging that had been made by the Banks. They frightened the hell out of me because they had everything bar my PIN code. I was supposed to wait for a call from them on the following day ,at 11.15. They would then tell me if I was owed money ,and, if that was so they would recover such money and would charge 10% of the sum owed . I would have to pay that up front. I hour after that call to confirm that I had sent a money order for that amount ;they would then BAC’s the balance into my account.. I did no such thing but, instead ,contacted my bank and gave them full information. They then cancelled my cards and were putting a watch on my account for any attempts to withdraw any monies. I also called the police ,who gave me a crime number and very little else. To their credit ,the Ministry of Justice called me back on the Monday and stated that this was a fraud ,they never acted through third parties,let alone through dubious Asian companies.
On the 6th of September some body succeeded in debiting my account for the sum of £7,828-00p.
I was horrified and contacted the bank immediately. They said that they were sorry for the inconvenience and assured me the money would be back in my account within 48 hours. That was the beginning of a very stressful period, 52 hours passed and I was still awaiting a return of my money. Apparently some Ba**ard hard bought a very hi-tech sound system with my new card from a company called Audio Design, a £7,828.00p system. The Lloyds Tsb investigation dept. told me that it was a close personal friend of mine who conducted the transaction, saying, he stated, ”Brian let’s me use his card to buy the big stuff.” I had a very robust conversation with the “so called” investigator ,pointing out that I had requested that my account be watched for any possible fraud . I had many phone conversations with the Recovery department and was told that it could take longer than they thought to get my money back to me. In the middle of last week one of the investigation department actually told me that it was usually the client that was guilty in such cases and that was when I blew up.. My wife took the phone off me and apologised to whoever it was I was talking too.Later on that same day ,the MD of Audio Design phoned me and told me that they were a mail order business and this deal was done over the phone.
I rang the Banking Ombudsman and within a day I had a reply, within three days I had a manager from the recovery department of Lloyds TSB call me up and apologising for the crass behaviour of the investigators and, 24 hours later the full amount was returned to my account with interest too. There are some well mannered people out there, he was one of them. Please don’t dismiss this as another story, you could find yourself in the same situation,
BrianD
