Fraud within Wonga?

[Draylynn]

I have never had an account with Wonga and never will have one but that did not stop them from taking £521.29 out of my bank account!

 

Holy cow!

This has just happened to us today. My mother noticed that a little over £500 had been taken out of her account by Wonga using her debit card details and they're also in the process of trying to take another £260 ish from her bank.

No one in this family has ever used them before. She's just had her card cancelled and we'll be visited by the police tomorrow to investigate the fraud. I'll certainly point her to http://www.oft.gov.uk/ and http://www.ico.gov.uk/ to report it there too.

[debtadvice2010]

Make sure your mother askes her bank for a charge-back...

 

She is entitled to have the money paid back as the charge is not hers.

[Draylynn]

Yeh, she's doing that, they're trying to take even more money now, she's just had another charge for £230 ish. :/

She phoned Wonga yesterday too who live up to their reputation for support, repeatedly accused her of taking out the loan and telling her she had to pay it back. She tried phoning them again today, got someone else - told him "they had been reported to the police /w crimenumber". He took our phone number and said he would phone back, but I'm not holding out any hopes.

[renegadeimp]

Big mistake phoning them up. They will say and do anything to get you to pay or to get you off the phone.

[weski]

I checked my current account online at about 8.00 this morning and £252.26 was paid out to Wonga overnight. I had never heard of them before, but having done a little research and read this thread I got very worried. I Rang my bank at about 9.00 am. They cancelled my card immediately and asked me to ring wonga, to query the payment, and then ring Lloyds fraud line back. Spoke to Wonga - who asked for my account details (which of course they could not find). They did however find the payment from my account, and said that their fraud team would be in touch within 24 - 48 hours.Spoke to Lloyds again who said they would arrange charge back from Wonga but would meanwhile repay the money into my accountBy 12.30 the money was back in my accountBy 13.30 I received a phone call from Wonga fraud team, confirming that it was a fraudulent transaction, and apologising.I still have no idea how this happened, all that I can say is that Wonga must have very slack payment controls - they would not tell me the card information that was used due to 'data protect' which I found a bit odd as this was my 'data' that someone else had stolen.Meanwhile I cannot complain about how promptly Lloyds have refunded the money and just hope that this is the end of it.

[renegadeimp]

You MUST report them. Contact the OFT, trading standards and FOS. Also make a complaint to your local police and stella creasy WE have been getting a lot of reports about wonga doing this lately, and they seem to think simply saying sorry is ok. If its happening to you, imagine how many other people its happening to.

[IRDanIeL]

I have this weekend experienced this exact same problem.

After speaking to various people at Wonga (as well as my bank and the police), I finally found out that an account had been set up in my name, with my email address and my home address.

Now, I know Wonga cannot be responsible for somebody fraudulently using my details, but they have been very patronising: 'We take fraud prevention very seriously'. Evidently, they do not.

May well now contact the organisations suggested in this thread.

[Shaunny164]

I have also, just been the victim of fraud at the hands of Wonga. They have altogether taken £365.33 in 6 separate transaction over 4 days. I notified Lloyds and they have so far debited my account with £264 which was the first amount taken out on the same day as my complaint. The rest, I have been assured, will be refunded presently.

 

I was amazed to find out that a big financial company had been implicated in such fraud, on what appears such a large scale (and yet are still operating with impunity.)

 

I haven't contacted any other agency, apart from my bank about this fraud, but will certainly contact the OFT regarding this issue!

[IRDanIeL]

I also bank with Lloyds, and notice a few others in this thread have said the same. Curious...

[helchalk]

I to have been a victim of wonga taking money out of my bank account. Like the others I have never had any dealings with wonga but they took £240.15 out of my account. It is currently being investigated by nationwide and I am awaiting for a response. With regards to contacting the police do I just go into local police station? When my husband contacted wonga they informed him that they had not made any transactions using either of out debit cards, but my bank account reads different. I am still awaiting contact from their fraud department, who conveniently do not have a direct number. I think this may well be because they would have far to many angry NON CUSTOMERS ringing.

Is Stella still interested in reciving information about Wonga?

[pipercolt]

If you go onto your local police station they will give you a crime number. Contact Wonga with the crime number and they will tell you someone from their fraud department will get back to you but don't hold your breath! I actually don't believe that Wonga have a fraud department as apparantly they cannot be contacted by phone. Stella got the money back into my bank account within two days, seven days after I had complained to Wonga and their fraud department had not responded. Seven telephone calls to Wonga got me nowhere, one E mail to Stella solved the problem. Her E Mail address is: [email protected]

[pipercolt]

Also you MUST charge Wonga the same interest that they would have charged you on this amount for the period of time that they have had your money. How do you calculate this? Just go on their website and use the sliders to work out how much they would have charged you and aks them to reimburse you the amount that they took from your account plus the interest that accrues every day. I did and got £60 interest in the loan that I unknowingly gave them!!!

[helchalk]

How did you contact them to request interest back?

[pipercolt]

In a telephone call that I recorded. As long as you tell them that you are recording the telephone conversation you can do so legally and keep this as evidence. I also followed it up with an E Mail and told them that I would issue proceedings against them in the county court if they did not add the interest to the amount that they illegally removed from my bank account. I can guarantee that they will not want to go to court and will pay you off just to shut you up. You might also want to contact you local BBC radio news desk as there was a news piece last saturday about people like yourself who have had money taken from their account without their knowledge. Stella will be delighted to hear from you as she is running a campaign against this company so please do contact her.

[sillygirl1]

It is particularly important to complain to the OFT as they have already sanctioned Wonga, and are now being a bit more pro-active.

 

Any valid complaint against Wonga should be given to Stella, she is very active in campaining about payday loan lenders, and this particular lender wants to 'expand into other modern financial products' ie, try to become a bank or maybe do other loans.

 

They tried a business loan scheme but I believe people were not interested so I don't know what happened about that.

[renegadeimp]

Just to note, you do not have to tell th the call is being recorded. However, they must tell you if they are recording it.

[toofiegap]

Wonga has just been on watchdog concerning this sort of thing and Ms Robinson told the rep sent by them that they should refund the money taken from them with the same rates they charged them with 1% per day

[Numenius]

I'm wondering if I can pre-advise my bank/building society to NEVER under any circumstances give any of my money to Wonga?

 

I will never use Wonga anyway, but everything I'm reading here, elsewhere, on the radio and seeing on T.V leads me to believe that bizarrely the banks will just let them into anyone's account despite them having this track record! OFT obviously don't care enough as it seems to be happening day in day out.

 

Like a lot of folks we live pretty much hand to mouth - you take £300 or more from my account in any one month I'd be left with a choice between paying the mortgage or feeding my family. I could not wait weeks and while you "think" about it or "look into it" (and make interest from the money your holding meantime?) and continue debiting my account as I've heard of happening. I'm sure theres a lot of people in the same boat who simply could not financialy survive such an attack. I find it scary that they can just help themselves to anyone's account who has never ever dealt with them.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Numenius

[renegadeimp]

yes you can numenius. Put it in writing, that you revoke all permission for the bank to process transactions to the company and associated merchants. Then send a letter of appropriation. This letter is not well known, and banks will try and say you cant do it, however it is your legal right to send the bank it, as it can secure your essential outgoings, so NOBODY can take that money except the creditor it is allocated to. You cant even get to it yourself unless you send another letter of appropriation and give them time to carry out the instruction.

 

I use one on my bank account so my mortgage, car payments, insurance, water, electric etc are all in my bank and guaranteed to be there and paid each month. I learnt the hard way about it a few years ago, but it is a very VERY good thing to have.

Edited September 12, 2012 by renegadeimp

[Poolio]

Wonga has just been on watchdog concerning this sort of thing and Ms Robinson told the rep sent by them that they should refund the money taken from them with the same rates they charged them with 1% per day

 

Wasn't the rep sent by them also someone from marketing rather than someone from their so called fraud department. It was taken at face value that these people had been victims of identity fraud and that someone else had applied on Wonga for a loan using false details which meant that Wonga itself was a 'victim' of the act as it had paid out money and wasn't going to get it back. This version of events may be true but given Wonga's shocking customer service and poor infrastructure I wouldn't be surprised at all if the fraud was being carried out by someone internally and they wouldn't want that leaking out.

[toofiegap]

That is what I thaught while watching this. This rep was extremely unconfortable whilst speaking to Ms Robinson (all respect to her),but still tried to squirm his way out of the payments to those poor people who had been the victims of fraud.

[JOHNINYORK]

Regarding the concern aired by Numenius with banks making essential payments and Renegadeimp's reply of a letter of appropriation.

I have found a template of this letter,it might be of use to someone.

 

http://www.warwickdc.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/766E8170-D97F-4486-92BD-1B9A76F9487C/0/SampleRightofAppropriationLettertoBank.pdf

 

There is a bit of info on this site.

 

http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/answers/benefits/rightsOfAppropriation.pdf

 

Regards,John.

Edited September 15, 2012 by JOHNINYORK

[Cotts]

I believe Wonga is being run poorly at best, and at worst they are lying about their system and control process, and the best way to prove this is to provide evidence and discredit them, then pass this to the FSO and the OFT as they will close them down. The more evidence we amass the better chance we have (see below for suggestions).

I have been a victim of Wonga Fraud also but my case is different because they credit checked me and then loaned to the criminal (with a different name and address!) - This means that their systems are not what they say. The more people we can find with a similar experience the better chance we have of proving this.

I have recently appeared on BBC Watchdog (and various other programs and papers) and each time the Wonga spokesperson rolls out the same speech about what wonderful technology and systems they have developed (costing millions of pounds). But how advanced is this system really, if it managed to credit check me and then loan the funds to a different person with a different address? Furthermore, if it is capable of doing it once then surely the system can easily replicate this fault? If not then how fantastic that Wonga have developed self repairing software! I would like to find out how many similar cases exist so we can demonstrate that their system is ineffective. Other payday loan companies have been closed down because of inadequate systems and I am confident that Wonga will go the same way if we expose them.

I have a letter from Mr.Damelin (dated 11th Sept 2012) that in my opinion is full of holes and it raises many interesting points that I feel are worth pursuing. The letter has been passed to me by my MP as he is making representations on my behalf to Wonga, the Chairman of the Board of the Office of Fair Trading and Norman Lamb MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I feel that everyone with a similar issue regarding Wonga should approach their local MP and take the same action.

Furthermore, in my case, Wonga know the name of the criminal and yet they refuse to take action. In fact they hide behind the police stating that it is the police that will not take action. Mr.Damelin states in his letter that Police action is "clearly beyond Wonga's control" - this is simply because Wonga force this action. Wonga deliberately write off 'smaller sums ' (I think from discussions with their Fraud dept it's sums under 5000) to avoid the need for action. What message does this send to the criminals?

 

I have a case open with the Financial Ombudsman Service and I will pursue all avenues open to me to make Wonga tidy up its act and bring the criminal to justice, but I need some help.

 

In his letter, Mr.Damelin is attempting to 'develop links' which I suspect he feels will make tough action less likely. He also talks about "raising standards across the sector to protect and empower the consumer". I remain highly sceptical and feel that in most cases of this nature it's the weight of public opinion that drives the best and quickest result. I really do feel that Wonga have a business model that expects a high degree of collateral damage, and that most gestures toward "raising standards across the sector to protect and empower the consumer" are merely part of a damage limitation strategy.

I have started a Twitter page [EDIT] . I feel that this is the best way to locate people who have suffered because of Wonga. Any help I can get to bring these criminals to justice would be appreciated.

Edited October 24, 2012 by ims21

[amr11]

I have just discovered today that Wonga has taken 2 sums from my Lloyds TSB account on 17.9.12 totalling £320.27. Wonga have confirmed that a loan was taken out using my debit card details. They refused to provide any information as to when the loan was taken out, by whom and for how much. I was advised that someone from their fraud team would contact me within 24-48 hours.

Lloyds have confirmed they will refund the amount with 24 hours and seek reimbursement from Wonga. In the meantime, I have had to cancel my debit card.

I cannot understand how alarm bells did not start ringing at Wonga when the original loan was paid into an account which is different to the one Wonga were going to take payments from. I would have thought this would have resulted in additional security checks! I will be interested to hear from the Wonga fraud team as to what information was supplied in order to successfully take out a loan with their company.

[renegadeimp]

Go to your bank and get a chargeback issued immediately. Then contact the OFT and let them know whats going on.

 

Wonga are doing this thing way too often now.