Reclaiming Fraudulent Transactions - Is there a time limit?

[misspelledyouth]

Has anyone here any experience with reclaiming money from disputed transactions with Smile?
A little back story:

I left the UK September 2006 to go travelling and ended up settling in Melbourne, Australia. I stopped using ( but kept open and in the black ) my Smile current account and opened an Australian account, and since that point made no transactions on my Smile account. A transaction of £733 was made on the account in 04/07 but because I was not using it I never checked my statements and only when my agreed overdraft expired and my parents started receiving threatening letters and phonecalls did it come to my attention. My card was NOT stolen but I disposed of it several months ago as it had expired, and before the transaction was brought to my attention.

I contacted the bank to dispute the transaction but received this reply:


I'm sorry to advise you that due to the time that has passed since this transaction, I'm unable to obtain details or pursue a refund on your behalf.
Visa International allows us 120 days from the date of the transaction to charge it back as fraudulent. This is why it's in your Terms and Conditions that if you dispute a transaction you must tell us within 30 days. This is to ensure we have time to deal with it within the Rules and Regulations set by Visa.
I am sorry but due to the time that has lapsed we are unable to assist you.


This response indicated to me that the bank would do nothing and I had no choice but to pay this amount back, which I have started to do. Coming across this site and reading others success stories however has inspired me to see if there is any sort of stand I can take against this; In my mind unlawful and fraudulent acts do not become lawful and honest after 30 days have passed and I now regret rolling over so easily.

I would like to ask more well informed users of this site what my first steps, if any are possible, should be to resolve this, or if anyone has gone through anything similar.

A Google search of the company name on my statement the amount has been charged from reveals only one possible candidate but the bank would neither confirm nor deny if this was the company. A telephone call to said company failed to elicit any sort of sympathetic response and they would not help me at all. As I said above, because it seemed there was no way the bank would help me I hadn't approached the police regarding the issue, but is this the first thing I should do? Is there a time limit for reporting fraud to the police?

I was in Melbourne when the transaction occurred, and the company I believe the money has gone to is in Sydney, but as it is a UK account and I'm a British citizen should I be approaching the English police or Australian?

Any help on this international mess greatly received.

[citizenB]

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