Tony Slipper, a 60 year-old director of a chain of children's nurseries, has had his money returned by the bank but turned down its offer of £500 to compensate him for the stress of the experience, telling This is Money that 'the public need to know the ease with which this was allowed to happen'.
The theft was conducted through an unusual pattern of transfers between Mr Slipper's Santander 123 Account, his attached Santander credit card and a number of credit cards in other people's names.
Firing line: Santander customer Tony Slipper cannot believe how easy it was for a fraudster to steal money from his 123 Account
Mr Slipper discovered the fraud after he had a debit card transaction refused. He checked his 123 account online to find that, in the preceding days, two amount totaling
almost £10,500 had been transferred to his credit card account.
He then checked his credit card to discover that twelve balance transfers had been made with money moving from his credit card to what an adviser in the Santander fraud department later confirmed was numerous other credit cards not his name.
The balance transfers were of between £900 and £1,300 each time and amounted to a total of £14,500.
Mr Slipper said: ‘As a result of all this I was denied access to my accounts for almost two weeks and having cancelled my cards as a precaution it took the same length of time to issue new cards.
‘These arrived the day before I was due to go on holiday. Although my money was fully refunded the stress over that period of time was considerable.
‘Just one look at my credit card statement, which the Santander team must have had in front of them at all times, screams out that something was amiss.’
This is Money has reported on the rise of increasingly sophisticated bank fraud. Cases have included 'malware' attacks involving computer software that can read keyboard stokes or serve up bogus bank websites to collect security details, and 'vishing' scams that see fraudsters pose as telephone banking staff to con account-holders into transferring cash to them.
Fraud threat: Mr Slipper believes he was a
target because fraudsters know customers are keeping large sums in 123
Current Accounts
In these cases, victims can find themselves unable to recover the money as banks take the view that they have been guilty of negligence in allowing their security details to be accessed, no matter how sophisticated the deception.
However, Santander has made no suggestion that the fraud was committed because Mr Slipper's security details had been compromised.
Mr Slipper said he is incredulous that Santander hadn’t detected these unusual movements and alerted him. He hadn’t given out any of his online banking passwords, nor had he given out any other information.
When he was eventually assigned a contact in Santander's fraud department the scam was explained to him.
The fraudsters phoned the bank purporting to be Mr Slipper and were asked to answer simple security questions about his name, his wife’s name, his postcode, address and date of birth - all details that would be readily available through public sources including the electoral register.
Mr Slipper says the fraud team told him the only other detail the criminals were asked for was his credit limit, which they also knew.
Despite Mr Slipper having been assigned security passcodes for online and telephone banking, the fraud was seemingly committed without these being tested.
Santander remained tight-lipped over the fraud when contacted about Mr Slipper’s case. The bank and wouldn’t confirm how it happened, saying it doesn’t want to reveal the details in order to keep fraudsters in the dark as to how it detects criminal activity.
It added that all suspected fraud cases are dealt with on an individual basis. It would not confirm if it had ruled out fraud by Santander staff, or if the apparent theft had been reported to the Police.
A Santander spokesman said: ‘We sincerely apologise for the stress and inconvenience that has been caused to Mr Slipper. Santander constantly monitors account activity to safeguard our customers against fraud, and we try our best to find a balance between providing security and enabling customers to use their account and card.
‘Unfortunately, on this occasion Mr Slipper did not receive the service he should from us. Santander takes all cases of suspected fraud very seriously and fully investigates all allegations made. Mr Slipper has been reimbursed and we have offered compensation as a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience.’
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