Smile.... NOT... Grrrr... Fraud Transaction then bank charges...!

[bradkb]

On the 5th, logged on to my bank account just to check my statement, and noticed 2 transactions for B Direct, one for £100 and the other for £180. Never heard of them and certainly didnt authorise it. So I rang Smile.

 

"Yes sir this is an online gambling company, and our system did mark these are suspect"

 

So why did you pay them?

 

Long story short, they cancelled and reissued my debit card, and set about investigating this fraud. Told me it would take up to 2 weeks to get my money back, I asked "well this was to last me to the end of the month, now I am skint and no money to pay the direct debits left to go out"

 

We will see if we can speed this up.

 

2 days later 2 Direct debits and a card payment go out, the Direct Debits get bounced and the card payment gets authorised, then smile wacks me with £75 commission unpaid charges.

 

Yesterday I rang them, and they agreed to extend my overdraft but the woman threw in a comment of "because of how your account has been operating..." .... wtf? I have my wages paid in every month, and have done for the past 2 years, and very rarely go over my limit, if I do its because of their bloody charges.

 

Today logged on to find I have got the £280 back, but the charges are still there despite the customer services operator telling me that if it was infact fraudulent transactions then the charges would be refunded, to which I replied with "they will be refunded regardless dear..."

 

So now just have a short battle to get these back, and probably at the end of the month try to grab back any daily excess charges as well.

 

Watch out for fraud, it can really screw you over in more ways than you think, amazing really as we shred everything, very careful were I shop online, and still got stung.

[Guest ian cognito]

Thats bad, why don't they check when they think someone is using a card fraudulently? they froze my brothers account a couple of months ago because he'd had a large deposit and they were worried about money laundering apparently - where did this large amount of money come from? a bank loan from them!!!!!

 

At least you know you can get the charges back now and won't be looking for a brick wall to bang your head against for too long.

[bradkb]

Well got the fraudulent transactions back and the commission unpaid items, and now today on the account appears two transactions, 1 for Service Charge £15, and 1 for Daily Excess Charge £15. Secure message to smile along the lines of "thank you for refunding the charges you placed on my account when my Debit card was fraudulently used, even though you refunded them a day later than promised, but then taken EVEN MORE money in other charges, I EXPECT these to be refunded to my account by the end of tomorrow at the latest..."

 

See what happens.

[Guest ian cognito]

I checked my statement today and found they had taken another £18 in interest!! (from when i was overdrawn before they paid me the unlawful charges back) secure essage sent - close the account and transfer the balance out!

[Guest NATTIE]

Damn the bank beat me to this one which is what I would have posted if I had spotted it because where fraud occurs the bank would have to put you back to where you were had it not occurred. At least it is sorted out

[Bizarre.Moogle]

Dont know who you spoke to in smile, but they should have offered a foc (free of charge) overdraft to cover the trans to avoid going overlimit from the default £500 o/draft that is on the a/c.

 

 

What tends to happen is that the Fraud department will refund the trans back into the a/c and leave Customer Services to mop up any charges incurred. We think this is unacceptable and raised this a few times.

[bradkb]

Finally got all the charges back, including those which sneaked past me last month without noticing... thank you Smile... now dont do it again!

[spainuk]

Does anyone know how someone can take money from your account via telephone banking? I had 750 taken last week, the bank said they will not return my money because someone looked after my house and the details were in my house. They said it is impossible for someone to know our security number unless they have access to your details. They also went online and changed my password!! I hace never used telephone banking and had forgotten i even had it, so i would have thought they should have been more alert to this large transaction when i have never used it before. Please help. It is all the money i have in the world.

[catinahat]

And this is supposed to be the 'ethical bank!!!' All I can say is, at least Dick Turpin wore a mask!

I'm on DLA/ income support and this bank were taking increasingly ridiculous amounts off me each month; charges incurred upon charges and daily charges on those, excess charges, unauth overdraft charges etc etc... one month alone they took over £200! In the end I had to get my benefits paid into a new basic bank account I set up and Smile are still hounding me for a rapidly rising sum (which was approx £500 and last time they sent a demand it had risen to over £2,000!) This despite they've taken around £8,000-10,000 in charges from my benefits over the past few years!. God help those of us who bank with UNETHICAL banks!

Cat

good luck everyone in getting back wot is rightfully yours!