Victims of internet bank fraud

[Tankus]

The Times

BANKS will no longer honour the debts of victims of internet fraud after a sudden rise in attacks against online accounts, The Times has learnt.

Britain’s 14 million internet bank customers have faced a month of intense bombardment from fraudsters trying to access online accounts in devious “phishing” scams. 

Around 60 such frauds, each generating hundreds of thousands of e-mails, were detected in October — a 33 per cent increase from September. MessageLabs, an internet security company, is currently intercepting 50,000 messages and 80 to 100 phishing websites a day.

Banks are not insured against the losses and have to compensate victims themselves. They paid out more than £4.5 million in refunds to approximately 2,000 fraud victims in the first half of this year.

Some police officers have recommended users to abandon internet accounts altogether.

Up to now, British banks have automatically refunded money to victims, regardless of how obvious the fraud was and how much the customer was at fault.

However, the Association for Payment Clearing Services said last night that the banks were entitled to review cases individually and could not guarantee that such refunds would be made automatically in future.

“All victims of phishing scams so far have got their money back, however questionable the circumstances. But banks are entitled to look at individual cases on a case-by-case basis to make sure that the customer is not in breach of terms and conditions. There could well come a point where someone is not going to get their money back.”

Several big banks said that they could not continue to be liable indefinitely.

Mark Hemingway, head of media relations at HBOS, said: “Fraudsters do tend to target the weakest link and in some cases that is the customer. The customer does have responsibility and this is the point of educating them.

“Currently, if a customer says that he was not aware (of a phishing threat) it is very difficult to say that he should have been. This should remain the case for the next few years. But beyond that, who knows?” Lloyds TSB said: “Cust- omer liability depends on the circumstances.”

The Royal Bank of Scotland said: “We have to look at these things on a case-by-case basis.”

Just 1 per cent of “spam” e-mail originates in the UK and senders can be fined £5,000 if they are proved to have targeted private addresses. No one has yet been successfully prosecuted for a phishing scam, with the first case due before the courts in January.

The first such scam was detected in Australia in March 2003, with the first British case discovered six months later.

Such scams appeared to be in decline worldwide two months ago, with fraudsters adopting other techniques but there has been a huge resurgence since, with September and October setting records for this year.

[Craig]

If it is to be the case that banks will no longer refund customers who have fallen victim to fraudsters, the banks need to educate their customers so they can become more aware of what is potentially fraudulent and act appropriately.

[doug]

Either that or the banks will have to dream up a more secure procedure for their customers. If they don't, they are liable to lose a lot of customers and business.

[Damo]

If it is to be the case that banks will no longer refund customers who have fallen victim to fraudsters, the banks need to educate their customers so they can become more aware of what is potentially fraudulent and act appropriately.

Exactly!

I bank with Abbey and have used their internet banking since it started, Abbey have always been excellent when it comes to informing their customers about fraudulant emails and such, they're displayed on virtually every member page, anyone who misses one and is the 'victim' of these fraudsters has no place using the internet in the first place, let alone internet banking!

I still can't believe, that after such high publicity for years, that people still give out their account details and passwords to a dodgy email address.

This is why I hate people, because they're stupid!

Ok, rant over! :D

[Craig]

I used to bank with Natwest. I never had a problem with them, but I joined Smile.co.uk back in 2001 prior to travelling to Australia as they gave me more control over my money online.

I had a problem while in Australia which resulted in approx £1000 being stolen out of my smile account before I was able to cancel my cards. Luckily upon my return to England 3 months later, smile gave me a call at home, and within a week the funds were returned.

To this day, I have never had a problem with smile, and the way their online system works. Okay I don’t have a "local bank" to visit them, but they are only a secure message or phone call away. If the day does come they fall short of what I need, I can still pop into my local natwest!

[Sir Radfordin]

Surely all the bank needs to do is write to every customer who has an account stating what the risks are and how customer should act to prevent fraudulant activity. The letter should then be signed by the account holder and returned to the bank. After a certain date, if the letter hasn't been returned you get blocked from internet banking until the letter is returned.

With that little process done no-one can claim not to know about the risks and we can all get on with our lives knowing that those of us who use our brains aren't funding those who are too lazy to think.

[popeye]

I use LloydsTsb and they are very aware of the scams and do write letters to their customers.

Their web pages also have warnings etc.

[andsome]

Surely all the bank needs to do is write to every customer who has an account stating what the risks are and how customer should act to prevent fraudulant activity.  The letter should then be signed by the account holder and returned to the bank.  After a certain date, if the letter hasn't been returned you get blocked from internet banking until the letter is returned.

With that little process done no-one can claim not to know about the risks and we can all get on with our lives knowing that those of us who use our brains aren't funding those who are too lazy to think.

COMMON SENSE POSTING . Having said that I am still using the local bank as they are so handy

[Tankus]

Ive been screwed over using a cash-point ..... I dint consider myself an utter mug ...but I got caught out ........

you just don't know