Far too often when a person is the victim of fraud or have had their bank accounts compromised and then drained, the authorities that we trust to keep us and our money safe – or, at the very least, take the crime seriously and investigate it properly – are found wanting.
We have heard from many, many readers over recent years who have been told by their banks that once their money is gone it’s gone and there is nothing that can be done. As a kicker they are regularly told that it was probably their fault in the first place and they should have known better.
In short, it is victim-blaming of the highest order.
But every so often the stories of money disappearing in the dead of night end happily for the victim. Spoiler alert: this is one of those stories.
A reader called Terry from Tipperary had an experience that he shared with us in two parts. In his first mail he explains that he has been a PTSB customer for almost 20 years and has a couple of savings accounts as well as his current account with the bank.
During the summer his accounts were compromised by criminals who acted fast and stole a huge amount of money from him. They were able to transfer just under €20,000 from his saving account to his current account and then immediately on to a bank based in Malta after which the money trail went cold.
“One of these transfers was for €9,980 and the other was for €9,970,” he writes. “I am advised by the bank’s fraud department that these transactions happened at around midnight on August 14th. The first I knew about this was on the afternoon of August 15th when my Visa card was rejected for a purchase I tried to make online,” he writes.
Concerned (obviously), he telephoned Open 24 – PTSB’s customer line – at around 4.40pm and waited 10 minutes for someone to answer the call.
“Then, after answering a number of security questions, I was asked what my query was, and thereafter I was informed that I would have to speak to their fraud department.
“When I requested to be put through to them he said he would do so, but needed to ask me some security questions. After answering these, I was told to hold on and he would put me through. After waiting about two minutes, the gentleman came back on the phone and said he was very sorry but he could not put me through as the fraud department was now closed as it was just 5pm and that I would have to phone back tomorrow morning.”
We might pause Terry’s story for a second. Can you imagine any world in which it is acceptable that someone who is trying to report a theft of 20 grand is told that the relevant department is closed and to try again tomorrow?
We can’t either. Anyways, back to Terry.
“The following day I was driving to Dublin when I stopped to phone the bank and speak to the fraud department. When I got on to them I was asked if I was aware that a large sum of €20,000 was taken out of my account and transferred to Malta. After confirming that I knew nothing whatsoever about this, I was told that a [named staff member] was looking after this matter; however, she was not at her desk at this time, but would call me immediately upon her return. In the meantime I should have my phone checked by some specialist to make sure it had not been contaminated in any way,” he writes.
He was also told, if possible, to have the phone reset to “factory settings” and report it to the Garda.
“I was also informed there was a form that they (PTSB) needed to be completed by myself and signed by a garda and returned to the fraud department as soon as possible.”
After the phone call – and no doubt pretty shaken – Terry decided to cancel his appointment in Dublin and return home.
“That afternoon I visited the local PTSB branch to see if I could get a copy of the said form to complete. However, I was informed that the local branch would not have access to this form and I would have to await its arrival by post. I then called to the local 3 store to have the phone checked, and reset to factory settings.” I then went to the local Garda station and made a full report.”
By 4.45pm that day he had not heard anything back from the woman in PTSB who was looking after his case and decided to phone her.
“After our conversation I learned no more than I had been told earlier in the day by her colleague. Since then I understand the only development has been that [his PTSB case office] has completed her report and passed it on to senior fraud officers and is awaiting their decision, for which I am told there is no time limit for a conclusion.”
In his mail he wonders if there is a case to be made that PTSB were being far too complacent in examining the loss of his €20,000.
We made contact with Terry but before we could contact PTSB we heard back from him.
“I am delighted to report that, without any word from their fraud department, I find this afternoon, when checking my bank accounts, that two payments were lodged into my current account, one for €9,980 and the other for €9,970. These are the two amounts that were originally taken out of my account. While you will understand I am delighted to have these sums returned to my bank balance, I am extremely disappointed with the communications from PTSB.”
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He said that after his initial correspondence with Pricewatch he had telephoned the fraud department to see if there was any update on the case. He was told that a report had been completed and submitted to senior officers for their perusal. Their decision was awaited and could take any amount of time, with no time limit.
“Then this afternoon, when examining my bank accounts, I find that the above two sums had been lodged back into my account and – again – this was done without any notification (so far) from PTSB. I am sure you would agree with myself when I say that, for all the finances they spend on advertising both on TV and elsewhere, they would be better off diverting a small amount of this budget to educating some of their staff in customer communications and customer care.”
We take his point that the communication could have been better but, were we in his position and knowing what we know about fraud and the response of some financial institutions to crimes of this nature, we would have been so overcome with relief that our life savings had been returned to us that we might well have forgotten everything else.
We contacted PTSB to find out more about this case.
“We work very hard to prevent fraud occurring in the first place and, where it has occurred, to support customers to recover their funds,” a spokeswoman said. “If a customer is concerned about fraud, they can contact our fraud team by phone which is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” she continued.
“While we are unable to discuss the specifics of individual cases, we do maintain logs of incoming and outgoing calls and our systems confirm that we tried unsuccessfully to contact this customer on several occasions immediately after the incident and in the days following. We have been in contact with the customer again in recent days and will ensure to address any queries he may have regarding his engagement with the bank.”
The spokeswoman said that it was “important to note that while all incidents of fraud are investigated on an individual basis, in the majority of cases of this nature, the customer’s money is retrieved or covered by the bank, as it was in this situation.”
And that was that.
While the details of how the fraud was perpetrated in the first instance remain unclear, it was not a case in which he had been conned into authorising a payment and as such the bank did not hold him accountable for the money leaving his account and so transferred it back to him.
It is worth pointing out that it did not retrieve the money from the criminals or their Maltese bank account, and ended up taking the financial hit.
It is interesting that PTSB said it tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to contact our reader and yet he had no record of that.
One financial industry source we talked to about this story said it was possible that what happened was that he inadvertently downloaded a piece of malware on to his phone that gave a third party access to his phone activity and his banking app.
It is also possible, we were told, that the malware also had access to his contacts and if that was the case it would have been a simple thing to block all calls and text messages from his bank, a move which would have given the criminals more time to steal his money knowing that even if the transactions were a red flag, the bank could not make contact to alert our reader to the movement of his money.
If that is what happened and if criminals are wilfully blocking banks from communicating with their customers, it adds a sinister element to an already murky business.
