Fraud victim tells LBC he has had no 'closure' since the incident
29 December 2022, 12:44 | Updated: 29 December 2022, 12:48
This victim of fraud says there's 'no element of closure' after losing £120 to an anonymous company
A single father of two opened up about his experience as a victim of common fraud.
After acknowledging that 40 per cent of all crimes are fraud, Emily Thornberry spoke to this victim who says he doesn't feel closure despite getting his money back.
The Labour MP took your calls in James O'Brien's usual spot this morning.
James from Weston-Super-Mare said because of his children he is “always spending money on various things”. However, over the course of a few months, he saw small amounts of money being taken out of his account.
“The reason it went unnoticed was because it was small values, like £5.99,” James explained.
The payments were made to a company that he’d never heard of, and James thinks that relying on direct debit payments for insurance, tax and bills meant he didn’t question the missing money straight away.
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When James contacted his bank, he was told that there had been no record of the payments.
Since the payments were for a few pounds at a time, James said: “I hadn’t seen such a small amount was worth following up – but I think it added up to £120 in the end.”
The bank repaid James his money and passed his case on to their fraud team, but he says that “there was no element of closure” to his story. “You don’t find out who was stealing from you – and I don’t know if they ever found out.”
Emily added that there is also no advice given to people like James as to how to prevent fraudulent payments from being taken from their accounts:
“The fact that nobody got back to you or gave you advice…why is the bank allowing £5.99 to go out of your account for something you didn’t sign up for?”
Emily received many calls from people who have experienced similar incidents. Hear their stories on Global Player.
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