I was just working on my other project when a post popped to mind. It falls under the ‘only us’ category. Even now I get angry about this. It relates to fraud. Now they give you advice on taking care to shred paperwork. Properly block out personal information. Not giving people access to your information. However what if it’s information that is coming into your home? How to you protect that? Read on and see what I mean.
We had got back from our wedding and honeymoon in the Caribbean. Working our way through all those people and companies that you have to notify of the name change, change of circumstances and the like. I had a few more days off before our wedding party for friends and family so we had a few appointments between the final preparations for that. One of those was to get hubby added to my current account and my name changed. Went into the local branch. Got it all sorted. Happy days.
A few days after the party we had decided to have a few weeks off the drink. Sitting at the table just about to have dinner and the phone goes. It’s my bank. Sorry to inform you but we think you have been a victim of fraud. They start going through some transactions and my heart sinks. So the savings that I put in to pay the bills for the wedding party: it’s all gone? Yes you are overdrawn. How? In all the years I have banked with you I’ve never had an overdraft.
We were asked to go into our local branch the following day to sort it. Before I ended the call I asked if they could let the mortgage payment got through. They assured me there would be no problem and we would be getting the money back. I remember clearly putting the phone down and grabbing a bottle of wine. Sod the not drinking.
How had this happened? The debit cards for both of us had arrived safely as had husbands pin number. Neither of us had been anywhere unusual. Husband hadn’t even used his card yet. Dinner was forgotten. I was distraught. If the bank didn’t give us that money back I was wondering how to cover the cheques for the party. It was going to be mortifying when they bounced.
The visit to the bank was eye opening. They had issued my husband with a cash card. I’d never had one but they figured he would want one. It had never arrived and that was being used. As for the overdraft. Sheepishly they said that it had been approved as my situation had changed. So getting married means that I’m suddenly, after years and years of being a good customer, was going to be irresponsible? I was livid. To make matters worse they hadn’t paid the mortgage.
They’d had a field day at various electrical stores: not local ones. That stuck in my mind because they had even had the audacity to set up direct debits for insurances on the items they had brought. While we were stood at the counter going through some forms my husband noticed someone in the queue who, when he spotted my husband watching him, ran from the branch. It was a postman. The lightbulb went on. He had intercepted the post. I jest you not. We have contacts in Royal Mail. He was caught and eventually deported: I seem to remember it making local news.
For a while after we were getting credit cards for other people. The police were not interested but if they ran up lots of debt then let them know. Thanks for that. Those accounts were harder to close but we got there. It marred the start of married life that was for sure as for months I was on edge. We got the money back and thankfully with some letters we were not too badly affected.
I hadn’t heard of anyone else suffering fraud that way. The bank held our cards at branch for collection for a few years at my request. With all the best will in the world you can’t protect against everything. People will find a way. Only us! Ex