Now That Is A Bank Raid!
There are reports from the United States about what must rank as the world’s biggest bank robbery. The story is on France24 here. Here’s the opening paragraph.
Cyber thieves around the world stole $45 million by hacking into debit card companies, lifting withdrawal limits, and helping themselves from cash machines, US authorities said Thursday.
It just shows how you should carefully monitor your bank account.
I think it also shows, that your money is probably safer in an account or securities, where it is working hard. After all, suppose you have money in a deposit account, in the same bank account, as your main current account, a crooked bank employee could perhaps hack your account, move the money to your current account and get his friends to withdraw it from cash machines with forged bank cards. It may seem to be an unlikely scenario, but when the truth comes out from this mega-robbery, it might be only one step away from a scenario the banks believe can’t happen.
A bank is only as secure as its weakest link. As we’ve seen over the last few years, they have found a few of those. But how many more are there?
American Express Password Problem
I should say first that it wasn’t AMEX, who had the problem, but me, as I’d forgotten, what my login to their site was. I never write anything down or store it on the computer, so I had a problem, as the Mark One brain had forgotten it.
But their site is very professional in the way it dealt with someone like me.
Firstly, it asked me to enter my card details, and then it sent me a temporary password to login to the site.
This password was a six character alpha-numeric code, with the alpha characters in upper case.
On typing this in to the site with my customer ID, I was able to get in and change my password.
AMEX passwords are simple and must be a mixture of alpha and numeric characters, where case is irrelevant.
All very simple and as it’s AMEX, I suspect it’s a lot more secure than it looks in the first instance.
If all websites had such good security and simple passwords, on-line systems would be much more secure.
I’m Closing My Funding Circle Account
For similar reasons to why, I’m closing my Ratesetter account, I’ve decided to close my Funding Circle account.
Unfortunately, I’ve found it impossible to login, so I e-mailed them this.
Please can you close my account and return any monies to me.
Unfortiunately, I can’t login, as I’ve forgotten my password and I can’t answer the questions correctly to reset it. When I registered, I couldn’t answer the question about who my best friend at school was, as I didn’t have one.
It actually, is true, but I didn’t really have a best friend at my school, as my best friend, who lived a few doors away, went to a boarding school.
I’m Closing My Rate Setter Account
I have just sent this e-mail to Rate Setter.
I’ve never really got into Ratesetter, so I’d like to close everything down, or at least withdraw the money that has not been lent.
It’s just that the concept of the site requires a lot of managing and as Zopa now has their Safeguard product, which gives me a reasonable rate and quite a bit of security, I might just as well have the use of the money or give it to charity.
Have Nationwide Lost The Plot?
I’ve just logged in to my Nationwide bank account and they gave me a soft Internet sell on their ISAs.
They were offering a guaranteed pittance of 2.5%
I get a guaranteed rate of 5%, admittedly before tax, with Zopa.
We live in interesting times!
Zopa Goes Automatic
Zopa has introduced a product called Safeguard. Read what Which says about it here. Here’s the first paragraph.
Zopa, the UK’s leading peer-to-peer (P2P) site, has today announced it has created a ‘safeguard’ to pay out to lenders even if a borrower defaults on the money owed.
Having just put some money into the new product, it would appear that the process is now totally add money and accumulate the interest.
The most interesting thing about this product, is why if an independent company can give a rate of return of 5% or so, why can’t the banks?
Go figure!
Wonga Fraud Claims Grow
The BBC Watchdog programme is reporting increasing fraud based around Wonga. Here’s the introduction.
There’s been a growing number of complaints from victims about bank fraud, according to the BBC’s Watchdog programme.
It says it has heard from more than 350 people who claim their accounts have been raided for loans they didn’t take out.
They include 16-year-old student Simon Oliver from East Sussex.
“I was at Gatwick airport on a school trip and went to pay for some food and my card didn’t work,” he said.
It strikes me, that Wonga aren’t doing their checks correctly, as obviously, the sixteen year old, who was defrauded shouldn’t have been able to take out a long.
One point is that, the money has been loaned to a different bank account to the one where the payments are taken.
Surely, Wonga, do check bank accounts thoroughly! It looks like they don’t!
I just checked with a guy I know, who’s run finance companies and only in very rare circumstances, would you send the loan to one account and get the repayments for another. Usually, it was a commercial loan, where Director’s guarantees were involved.
I’ve not heard of this fraud being perpetrated on a reputable loan company.
Spanish Banking Practices
This story in the Guardian about Santander and their Chief Executive; Alfredo Sáenz, shows why the only thing you should ever do with this overblown Spanish bank, is to use their cash machine, if it is the only one available.
I did that once and got charged for the money, but didn’t get any. They did find the mistake, so 48 hours later, the money was put back in my account.
But as I’ve often said here, a great friend of mine who retired from a high position in a major clearing bank, always told me to bank with a bank, which is head-quartered in the UK and preferably England, if you live there.
There is also this story on the BBC, about Lloyds divesting themselves of their Spanish Operations at a hefty loss. One of the consequences is that Lloyds now have a small 1.8% stake in a Spanish bank. To quote my old mate, Brian, it looks like they’ve been screwed, glued and tattooed on that deal.
But then it’s only money! Except that a lot of it is our’s!
Winston Churchill To Be On A Fiver
It is being reported that the new five pound note will feature Winston Churchill.
I always thought that to be on a British banknote, you needed to have a lot of unruly hair, so that the note was more difficult to forge.
Whatever he was known for, it wasn’t for being particularly hirsute!
Santander Make A Mistake
Paul Lewis, the BBC’s respected personal finance expert, has just flagged up this story on BBC Breakfast. Although, it’s not a big financial failure like PPI, it could have been inconvenient for some former Abbey customers. This is the first three paragraphs of the story.
Santander, the country’s second biggest mortgage provider, says 30,000 of its customers may be due compensation, after errors made in 2008.
All were former Abbey customers, who were put on standard variable rate (SVR) mortgages after coming off fixed-rate deals.
But they were not told clearly enough that they could have transferred their accounts elsewhere.
He also flagged up that there is no central way to notify customers that there might be a problem with their bank or insurance company’s systems and said there was a business opportunity.
He’s right on that last point!
What is needed is a site, where you register with just e-mail address and short post code, like N14 or IP4. You then enter your bank, insurance company, supermarket, broadband and energy suppliers, phone and mobile companies and perhaps your make of car.
Then when anything turns up like this Santander problem or the Virgin broadband failure, the site would send you an automatic e-mail.
All warnings would of course be available for any registered member to view.
Unlike the price comparison sites, the site would never sell or give your details to any third party.
Paul Lewis said it was a business opportunity! It certainly is!
The Anonymous Widower 