This article is written by Morland Sanders about the Dispatches programme How Safe Is Your Cash?, on Channel 4 Monday 10 December 2012 at 8pm.
Thirteen thousand pounds. Thats how much Dr Asher Siddiqi claims was missing from his bank account when he went on line to check his balance, a moment he described as 'pretty shocking' but not anywhere near as shocking as when he discovered that his bank wasn't going to refund the money.
He claims his debit card disappeared followed by his balance, two big payments to one small shop, Dr Siddiqi said:
'One was a value of nearly £8000 and the other one was a value of nearly £5000. The only thing that stopped any more money going out the account was because there was no more money in the account'.
Dr Siddiqi thought the bank would refund the money but HSBC refused. It was suspicious partly because the person who made the purchase had kept the card for more than a day before using it, HSBC wrote to say:
'Your card and PIN were used and you have not been able to provide a reasonable explanation as to how an unknown third party would be able to obtain your card, and also know your pin and your address.'
Dr Siddiqi had been with the bank, in one form or another, for 32 years. He felt badly let down:
'The one time in my life, the one time I thought I could rely on them they let me down. They let me down very badly and I was absolutely shocked that they would take this position'.
Dr Siddiqi went to the Financial Ombudsman Service, the body which mediates in disputes between customers, after its first investigation it agreed with the bank.
HSBC told Dispatches:
'HSBC will refund any customer who is a genuine victim of fraud. With regards to Doctor Siddiqi, the Financial Ombudsman agreed with HSBC's evaluation that there was sufficient evidence of negligence by the customer for the bank not to be held liable for the disputed transactions on his account.'
However, the FOS is looking into Dr Siddiqi's case again and Dispatches has discovered that the ombudsman has no shortage of angry account holders to deal with. More than 3500 complained about disputed transactions last year and that number is increasing. Earlier this year the ombudsman criticised the banks for relying too heavily on chip and PIN evidence:
'We are seeing far too many cases where a thorough investigation has not taken place because the PIN has been used with the card. This is wrong. It shouldn't be happening and it's disappointing – and drags out the process for the customer unnecessarily.'
The banks still insist chip and PIN is secure. After the technology was introduced, counterfeit card fraud did drop dramatically by about three quarters but now it's creeping up again and in the first four months of this year, criminal takeover of credit card accounts has almost doubled.
The industry says it's not in their interest to allow fraud to continue, investigation teams are always involved in fraud claims and genuine victims get their money back promptly.
However, thousands of people every year say the banks are failing in a basic principle – to keep their cash safe.
