find it difficult to contact their bank in such situations. Of the participants, 17 per cent of them were unsatisfied with how their bank had managed the incident, while 15 per cent said they had waited 30 minutes or more to get in touch with someone at their bank via phone or webchat. In the most extreme cases, such delays not only cost thousands of pounds as fraudsters continued to empty accounts, but also left the customer with an enormous phone bill. One HSBC customer said he waited for seven hours on hold, which cost him a £50 phone bill.
In terms of advice or resources offered, Which? found that banks had failed to help a third of victims to better protect themselves from such crimes in the future. “Fraud can have a devastating impact on victims. When banks fail to offer proper support, it can make a nightmare situation even worse, and an absence of information from firms about how people can protect themselves could even lead to ruthless scammers striking for a second time,” the consumer group’s Money editor Jenny Ross said.
Usually, in a situation where money is taken from an account without permission, such as…
