Well, opened my bank statement to find I made a payment of £103 to amazon Germany?, thankfully it’s an account with RBS I no longer use much but I kept it active with about £50 in, so now I’m overdrawn by £49 with a Odl of £1000, rang rbs fraud line and a nice lady Tracy answered and after explaining what happened she transferred me to another department, I don’t do online banking on this account so couldn’t input my online numbers that the automated system required, so after several repeats it rang and apparently my call was important to them but they were very busy ( lots of fraud going on at rbs then) after 20 minutes a voice at the other end said it was Tracy again, so she apologised profusely and gave me another number to try, another 20 minutes and Frazier answered, after explaining my situation he transferred me to their fraud action department, ha, now we’re getting somewhere, again I had to wait as it was asking for my online number, and after another 20 minutes I gave up with that way and decided to try the number the lovely Tracy gave me, success, ( after another 20 minutes) and I got transferred, I should have realised something was not quite right as the automated voice announced “ welcome to Nat west online banking!” The nice chap, Ryan took my details and asked me for a account and sort code number, “ sorry” says Ryan
, “ this is for a royal bank of Scotland account” we can’t help you…I can transfer you to the relevant rbs department…” hello Tracy “ I said, …back to the inane automated soul destroying system, and finally the right chap ( forgot his name) explains situation to him, “ no problem, I just need your online account number, it starts with your date of birth and then some more numbers, “ I don’t do online banking “ no problem says nice chap, “ I’ll email you a form, I just need your online numbers, so, tomorrow I’m going to have to lose pay to go into the branch ( it’s not open Saturday) to try and sort it out, it would be less stressful to just pay the overdrawn amount and have done with it…
They do have so much fraud it takes ages .
My account was hacked and I was 50 minutes on the phone but they sorted it for me.
I was hacked by someone in Camden where I have never been and moreover I was not even in the country at the time .
How do they do it ?
Dunno muddy, but I’m sure if they used their technical skills honestly, they could make a fortune and not have to constantly look over their shoulder, but I guess they take the easy option…
To hack someone is easy. I takes time and something called ‘social engineering’.
If someone wants to hack you, they need to know that the person is alive and active. First they will follow someone to their house, they will take not of the house number, street name and any other area identifiers, town, city for example. You then go to site 192.com and start entering in the information you found. If registered with the site you will find the name(s) of the people living at the targeted address.
Once you’ve found the person’s name, you then do internet searches on the name, you look for social media accounts, see which ones they use and start to look through them. Your looking for birthdays, something that will give you a clue as to the persons birthday, that way you get such information as the persons date of birth, name and possible ages of other relatives, things like mothers maiden name or children’s name or partners name, even their date of births.
Now you know much information about the target, the persons full name, where they live, their date of birth, possibly mothers maiden name, names of children and other relatives who’s names and date of births might be used as passwords or set as a secret word.
The hacker will try to get as much information about you as possible because it will allow them to avoid suspicion at the next stage which is to use ‘social engineering’ on your bank. They will ring the banks support line number and try to use a very convincing excuse as to why the bank person on the phone needs to give them access to your account, obviously the bank person thinking they are talking to you and not the hacker.
The whole point is to try and get the bank person to believe they are talking to the account holder using what ever trick they can, hence the term ‘social engineering’, and in a lot of cases it works. Most of the time it’s to have a new credit card/bank card sent to a fake address which the hacker will be waiting to pick up.
When a bank has been tricked in this manner, they will never admit to it and will always claim they was talking to the account holder and it’s only when the account holder goes to the press and tells them what s**m bags the bank is in allowing fraudulent behaviour to take place and do nothing about it, that’s when they admit their wrong doing and give the account holder their money back BUT it does not always work.
People have lost thousands upon thousands of money due to banks not doing their job properly in allowing hackers to get the better of their phone operators and the some banks just come back with, ‘not our problem, we dealt with the account holder, followed their instructions’ regardless of the fact they was dealing with a hacker. Some banks just do not care.
My sympathies to those who have been hacked and ripped off. It’s a form of assault. It has the same effect. On line banking sucks. The convenience is outweighed by the enormous risk. I wouldn’t touch it for quids. (Pun intended 
The fraud people said you should check your account once a week .
Oh what a pain, Primus 
So stressful and annoying
Did you ever use that account to buy anything on Amazon? I know a few people who have been hacked and the common denominator was Amazon.
It would seem it is not about on-line-banking. If the hacker would go to finding out the persons Name and address, that is easily done via a phone book, or electoral register.
I also refuse to do online banking. But although I do buy stuff online. For this I have a separate account, with not a lot in it. I mostly pay by PayPal, if I can.
Ditto, I refuse to do online banking and will close my account if the try to force me.
I do stuff online like Amazon or book flights etc but always use my credit card 
Excellent post Dodge, and very informative. It strikes me that if a hacker is so determined, that it would be very difficult to avoid being hacked.
I’m sorry to hear of your misfortune Primus, I hate using the telephone at the best of times, it would really pi$$ me off big style!
We didn’t have all this bother with cash, it seems we have just created a thousand new ways for the scoundrel to steal your hard earned dosh.
The more I think about it, and hear stories like this, makes me want to tear up my cards and just use cash as often as I can. I know there are times when it’s impossible to use cash, but I avoid buying anything off the internet (call me old fashioned) but I still enjoy a visit to the shops to try stuff on, or hold said object in my hand and examine it properly.
V checks ours at least 2x/wk.
For on-line purchases we have a credit card with a £500 limit so that’s the maximum we can be taken for.
The thing is, the way technology is moving, banks, businesses and commerce is pushing everyone to do digital for all purchases and other financial business. When you want to use cash you tend to get a look of disgust thrown your way.
I think today’s society is waiting for us oldies to die so society can move forward further into the digital age because it’s always the oldies who get the blame for wanting to use cash and not do things online.
And with that, it makes life easier for hackers because all our information will be online.
Hi
No online Banking for me, use phone banking.
I also use a Credit Card for online purchases for the protection it gives.
Hi Primus!
Sorry to hear about you experiences with this scam.
When reading of your experiences, with the Bank, I noticed that you make no mention of taking up this scam with Amazon.
For the bank to make a payment to Amazon, I’d have thought that there must have been an invoice from Amazon somewhere, otherwise why would the bank be doing a payment? If not an invoice, what triggered the payment?
My banks sends me a note almost every time I spend anything!
These on line traders, like eBay and Amazon, will be well versed in scams like this.
A few years ago, I noticed some invoices in my eBay account, for a number of small stationery purchases, which were to be delivered to a Russian address.
Luckily, I noticed it early and eBay did me proud by sorting it all out very quickly.
In the event, my eBay address had been changed to a Russian address, so anything I bought would have gone there (I laugh now!), without me knowing much about it.
That led on to my using the “haveibeenbeenpawned” web site and finding that my email Address had be given, or sold on, by some site from years before.
Worth a look there:-
If you come up as having had your email &/or password compromised you might want to get a new password, pronto!
Good post, Dodge, and a timely reminder.
I note that the OP was not, specifically talking about “on line Banking”, as such, and I don’t think your input was either.
In the OP, a (fake?) Amazon invoice was paid. Amazon might well be wanting to follow that up. I bet Amazon will be anxious to find out how that happened.
In your post, you end up with a Bank employee being willing to accept someone phoning in with a sob story and then the Bank going into denial after giving away someone’s money.
It might have been like that but, in my own experience, the bank has required me to come in ,with proof of identity , but I can’t say if they always do.
Good post - keeps us aware.
Ha ha. My password had been breached 3 times on checking that link. Oh goody I get a 30 day or something free. Than have to pay for their security.
Well they would say that, because they want my cash.
It’s a donation web site.
A company might well want to pay monthly but not required by us occasional users.
If your password has been breached 3 times, you might want to consider changing it.
It does not say which password has been hacked. I have quite a few, for different applications. Any purchases are only done via PayPal. If I can’t use PayPal, I don’t buy.
Call me sceptical Ted, but would putting your email address into a site we know nothing about, be the the first breach of your address?..
Nooooo Thanks…
OGF,
True, but it is very well known in the trade.