A MAN who is now £17,000 in debt says fraudsters stole his identity and drained his bank account in a spending spree.
Jamie Cavanagh, 37, a civil engineer from East Grinstead, West Sussex, received a surprise letter in January from HSBC.
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The letter said he had spent £12,000 on a credit card and owed the bank the money.
Jamie says he also discovered a current account with an overdraft of £5,000 had been opened in his name and then “maxed out”.
But Jamie claims it was fraudsters, saying he had never banked or even dealt with HSBC in his life, being a customer of other banks.
In total, Jamie said he owed £12,820 on the credit card and £5,130 on the debit card.
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He said: “At first I thought somebody had sent the wrong post, until I saw my name and address at the top of it.
“It showed that they had managed to take out £10,000 in cash at various cashpoints across south London, in Catford, Croydon, Bromley, Orpington, Lewisham…”
Transaction details showed small spends in shops, including Tesco, and withdrawals of hundreds of pounds.
Jamie said he immediately flagged the payments to HSBC as fraud.
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But he said HSBC’s customer service process has been “beyond poor” and like “dragging your arse across sand paper”.
Jamie’s issues with the bank began from the very first call.
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He said: “I needed to speak to someone human because every time I phoned their telephone number it was asking for a bank account number which I didn’t have,” he said.
“So I messaged them on Twitter and they said just type any number in and it will put you through to someone.”
The bank informed Jamie that it would take around two weeks for it to carry out an investigation.
He said that he heard nothing after two weeks and upon contacting the bank found that it could take up to seven weeks.
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During this time, Jamie repeatedly received letters demanding he start paying back the money.
He was sent a final warning at the end of March saying he needed to start paying back the debt or face a final demand for the full amount and default notice.
He said: “Obviously, I knew it wasn’t my debt, it had nothing to do with me.
“So I asked them at the very least, can you get this to stop?”
But it never did.
On Saturday, 14 weeks after Jamie first reported the fraud to HSBC, he still had not received any news.
“Other than sending letters demanding payment for the outstanding debt, they never contacted me.
At first I thought somebody had sent the wrong post, until I saw my name and address at the top of it
Jamie Cavanagh
“I rang them myself in the morning.
“This is what beggars belief in my opinion.
“If you are doing a fraud investigation, would I not be top priority to contact?
“Even if they suspect that it might be me who is doing this, would it not make sense to call me and question me?
“I was quite upset as you can imagine.”
Jamie was told the investigation was still ongoing when he eventually got through to the bank.
“I’m going to end up with bailiffs at my door – it just baffles me.
“All that’s happening is that my financial situation is seemingly getting worse,” he said.
In the space of two and a half months, Jamie’s credit score had plummeted from 930 to 620 out of 1,000.
After “politely ranting down the phone”, Jamie was able to raise an official complaint with the bank, which he was told could take up to five days to process.
“They hadn’t closed the credit account.”
The next day, he visited his nearest branch in Crawley with three forms of identification, his passport, driving licence and council tax bill.
He said after checking the system, he was told there was nothing they could do.
“I was at a complete loss with my treatment,” he said.
If you are doing a fraud investigation, would I not be top priority to contact?
Jamie Cavanagh
Out of options, Jamie decided to post about what had happened on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Over the next 24 hours, his April 8 post received 43,000 views, with the public complaint causing HSBC to reach out.
He received a message from HSBC saying, “Good morning Jamie, thank you for reaching out to us, we would really like to get this matter sorted as quickly as possible.”
Jamie said: “It took me blasting it all over Twitter for them to actually contact me directly, because before then I had not received any correspondence in 14 weeks.”
He has since been asked to provide more identification, but at the time of writing, the credit card has still not been blocked and Jamie’s credit score remains 300 points down.
He said: “Whoever has done this, I assume does not know me.
“I believe they’ve probably just pot-lucked as many people as they can.”
Jamie believes that someone managed to steal his identity by “busting” into his letterbox and using his personal information to open the accounts.
Jamie suspects the thieves broke into his post box to obtain the information they needed to open the account.
“It dawned on me that my post box had been stiff to open for a few months, which I just assumed was to do with rust or the weather,” he said.
“They would have had to take receivership of the credit card and the PIN code, which gets sent separately.
“So I figure, that’s what they were doing, busting into my post box.”
Jamie also called Sussex Police who advised he file a report with Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime.
He also registered with the Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System, a fraud prevention service, which placed a marker against his credit report, to flag the fraud.
He would later learn that the fraudsters had also checked his credit rating by creating an account on ClearScore with a different email address.
An HSBC UK spokesperson said: “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
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“We take all allegations of fraud extremely seriously and this case is being looked into.”
HSBC has been approached for comment by The Sun.
How to protect yourself against fraud
Criminals steal nearly £200billion a year by using increasingly sophisticated scams that catch people out – wit only one in twenty fraud cases solved.
USE the following tips to protect yourself from fraudsters.
- Keep your social media accounts private – Think twice before you your share details – in particular your full date of birth, address and contacts details – all of this information can be useful to fraudsters.
- Deactivate and delete old social media profiles – Keep track of your digital footprint. If a profile was created 10 years ago, there may be personal information currently available for a fraudster to use that you’re are not aware of or you have forgotten about.
- Password protect your devices – Keep passwords complex by picking three random words, such as roverducklemon and add or split them with symbols, numbers and capitals.
- Install anti-virus software on your laptop and personal devices and keep it up to date – This will make it harder for fraudsters to access your data in the first place.
- Take care on public Wi-Fi– Fraudsters can hack or mimic them. If you’re using one, avoid accessing sensitive apps, such as mobile banking.
- Think about your offline information too – Always redirect your post when you move home and make sure your letter or mailbox is secure.
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