Banks: Fraud

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Lord. Action Fraud, which is the central reporting point in fraud and cybercrime, is liaising with Victim Support to address the problems for particularly vulnerable persons. That work is being taken forward under the cybersecurity programme.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, only last Saturday I received a telephone call from my bank saying it thought my card had been cloned and asking me if I had been responsible for a particular transaction, to which I said no. This bank is very alert: it stopped the payment immediately and sent me a new debit card. I cannot express my gratitude to it more—it is HSBC. On a previous occasion, when more than £2,000 was taken out of my account, it did the same and I lost nothing. It needs to be congratulated.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Countess. In addition to these initiatives, we also see that telephone companies are taking steps to cut down the time in which a phone line can remain open when a bank telephones a customer, because there are circumstances in which fraudsters will attempt to use that open time to perpetrate a fraud.