Mother fights to save her life-savings after losing £161,000 to fraudsters

A mother was conned out of her £161,000 savings by fraudsters posing as bank staff.

Jan Dean was able to send £50,000 with three transactions without NatWest checking whether anything was amiss.

The 62-year-old had rarely made payments of more than £300 in the past.

The criminals also tricked her into moving a £51,000 pension payment into the account they had set up to steal her cash. The medical receptionist lost a further £60,000 from accounts at Halifax. Experts say it is one of the biggest transfer fraud losses they have seen.

The banks found some of the stolen money but, 18 months on, Mrs Dean is still fighting for £91,000 to be refunded. NatWest said they did not have to reimburse her because she explicitly approved the transfers.

Money Mail this week launched a campaign for fairer treatment and compensation for victims of so-called ‘authorised push payment’ fraud.

Figures published this week revealed that around £145million was lost in the first six months of the year.

A code of conduct that spells out what steps banks must take to protect customers from fraud was to be launched by the payments regulator today, but is now not expected until tomorrow.

The rules may include timely warnings – and rapid action – where banks notice suspicious activity on an account. But the watchdog is expected to stop short of making compensation mandatory for all victims.

Mrs Dean has fought to recover her life savings since May last year. She had been looking after her elderly mother who had been taken ill in hospital when she received a text message that appeared to come from NatWest. It claimed there had been suspicious transactions on her account.

When she called the number given in the text message a man called ‘David’ with a Scottish accent answered and said he was from the bank’s fraud department in Edinburgh.





MailOnline