Retired vicar hadn’t a prayer against conmen

The Greens, from Abingdon, near Oxford, had held their account with Barclays for about half a century. They were refused a refund of the £21,000 they lost because they had authorised the transfer — a common problem among those who are victims of fraud.

While both banks detected a fraud might be taking place, Santander called the Greens to check that the transfer was genuine. Barclays simply sent a text message asking them to confirm it. Santander blocked the transfer after speaking to Rosemary, 84, but Barclays sent the money to the fraudsters after she went into her branch to confirm the payment.

Why is fraud increasing?

Critics say banks need to do more to prevent fraud, instances of which are increasing. Between January and June this year there were 328,656 reported cases of “banking and credit industry” fraud, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, published by the Office for National Statistics.

The elderly are particularly at risk: one in three victims are aged 65 or over, the charity Victim Support said last week.

While just 18% of the population falls into this age group, over-65s accounted for 35% of the 39,272 cases of fraud in England and Wales referred to Victim Support by police between January and September this year, according to the charity. It said 22% of victims were aged 75 or over, despite making up just 8% of the population.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at the campaign group Age UK, said: “A text message querying a transaction is helpful but banks need to do a lot more to raise customer awareness about scams and how to defeat them.

“It is time for financial institutions and the government to recognise just how serious a threat fraud now is, especially for older people, and to take much more determined action to combat it.”

The Greens were victims of voice fishing, or “vishing”, where conmen pretend to be representatives of a bank or the police. They contact their victims, who are usually elderly, by phone and instruct them to act immediately in order to prevent fraud.

It is rare for banks to refund the money that has been stolen because the payments are authorised by the customers themselves, believing they are simply protecting their money.

How did the fraud happen?

Michael Green, 85, is the former rector of St Aldates in Oxford (pictured on the cover) and was an adviser to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. In April, Green was contacted by someone claiming to be from Barclays’ fraud prevention team. The couple have joint accounts with the bank.

The man, who called himself “Ian”, explained that fraud had been detected on the joint account and that they needed to act immediately to move their money to a “safe” account.

Michael passed the phone to Rosemary, who normally deals with the couple’s online banking. She was told a new bank account had been set up for them, and “Ian” provided the account number and sort code. It later transpired this was a Lloyds bank account.

When Rosemary tried to make the transfer, it was blocked by Barclays, because a flag had been raised by its fraud detection system. The couple don’t usually use online banking to transfer money, and certainly not when such large sums are involved.

The conman said Rosemary should go to her local Barclays branch to transfer the money instead. He told her because fraud was suspected she must not discuss the details with bank staff.

While on her way to the bank, she received a genuine text from Barclays asking her to confirm the transfer of £20,800 from the couple’s joint account. “Please reply Y if you have made this payment or N if not,” the text read.

Rosemary believed she was following instructions from Barclays’ fraud team, however, so ignored the text and authorised the transfer at her local branch in Abingdon. The money was transferred to the Lloyds account.

Later the same day the couple were contacted by another fraudster, pretending to be from their other bank, Santander, where they hold savings accounts.

He said he had spoken to “Ian” at Barclays and advised them to move their £7,000 savings to the Lloyds account whose details had been provided by the previous conman.

Santander also queried the payment, but it rang the couple — rather than just sending a text — to talk through the unusual transfer. After speaking to Rosemary, the payment was blocked and she realised the whole thing had been a con.

She immediately contacted Barclays, as did Santander. Santander and Barclays also contacted Lloyds, but by then no money was left in the account.

The case was referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which found in favour of Barclays.

The ombudsman said: “The problem with complaints where consumers have been conned into making the transactions on the fraudsters’ behalf is the bank isn’t generally responsible for the fraud, unless [its] advice, delays or other errors have resulted in the money being stolen.”

The ombudsman is continuing to investigate Lloyds to see whether the bank did all it could after being informed of the fraud to recover the money that was transferred out of the account.

What the banks say

Santander said it uses a number of different methods to contact customers if it suspects fraud, including phone and text messages.

It said: “Our systems identified the online payment as unusual, and we called to validate the transfer with [the Greens] before letting it go ahead.

“When speaking to our security centre, the customer explained they had been cold-called, leading our telephone adviser to immediately identify this as part of a well-known ‘safe haven’ scam. As we had not allowed the payment to leave before it was validated by the customer, we were able to cancel it without any loss to [the Greens]. The customer was also advised to immediately contact the other bank as this was a scam.”

Barclays said: “While we sympathise with Mrs Green’s situation, she willingly made the payment despite Barclays contacting her to flag that we believed the transactions to be suspicious. Mrs Green also visited her local branch to request that the payment was made.

“The case was then escalated to the Financial Ombudsman, who found that the bank acted appropriately and in accordance with Mrs Green’s instructions.”

Lloyds said: “We would never set up an account for a customer without appropriate verification and identification checks. The account in question [into which the money was transferred] was an account held with the bank for some time and I can confirm was not an account in [the Greens’] names.

“When we were contacted by Barclays [the day after the fraud took place], we had already put a block on the account as Santander had also informed us 30 minutes prior to this that the account may have been a beneficiary of fraud.

“However, by the time we were informed by Santander, the funds had already been removed.”

How to beat the fraudsters

1. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to transfer money from your bank account. Neither your bank nor the police will ever ask you to do this.

2. Don’t assume a caller is genuine because they have information about you, such as your account details.

3. If you receive a call purporting to be from your bank’s fraud department, say you will phone back. Wait for five minutes for the line to clear, and then call the number on the back of your bank card. Even better, use a different phone - ie a mobile if they called on your landline.

4. Don’t believe anyone who says they will call back from a number that matches your bank’s customer services department. The number displayed on your phone can be altered by the caller.

5. Never disclose your bank cards’ four-digit Pin numbers to anyone, including your bank or the police. Also, never write it down anywhere.

Tell us your story
Have you been the victim of this type of fraud? Did your bank try to prevent it from happening? Email: money@sundaytimes.co.uk