Costly night out: Woman says drink spiked on holiday and €7,000 taken from account

The case of Helen’s costly night out, was just one of many complaints handled by the ombudsman charged with protecting our finances last year. The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO) which was published last month.

Helen (not her real name) was on a night out with her pals while on holidays overseas when she got separated from her group and ended up spending much of the evening with another group of people she had just met. “She has very few memories of the next 24 hours and believes her drink was spiked,” the report says.

“Over that time there were many authorised transactions on her bank account totalling approximately €7,000.”

The next day, when the fog lifted, Helen rang her bank to tell them that all these transactions were acts of fraud. “She found it very frustrating ringing the bank as she kept getting cut off and had to start her story over again every time she got through,” the report details.

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“She said this caused great anxiety as she was abroad and very concerned. She also found it very frustrating that she never received a call from the bank’s fraud section whilst it was investigating the situation and often did not get promised call backs from other areas of the bank.”

The report says that Helen was surprised that the bank allowed the payments to go through as it was unusual spending for her and was happening throughout the night.

In response the bank said its security measures relied on authorisation – either biometric or a passcode and that all the payments were “authorised using the method Helen had agreed to when she opened her online banking app account, so it felt she was responsible for authorisation or had made access to authorisation easy for whoever authorised the transactions.”

It must have seemed to Helen at this point that it was game over. But she contacted the ombudsman anyway.

Helen complained about the bank’s poor communications when dealing with her issue and their failure to implement anti-fraud checks on the transactions. “The bank agreed that there were service failings in its dealings with Helen at different points in the process and offered her €2,500 which she accepted.”

She was still out of pocket to the tune of €4,500 making it a very harsh lesson to learn.

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* The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman investigates customer complaints in relation to the financial sector, including banks, building societies, credit unions, brokers, money lenders, hire-purchase providers, health insurance companies and retail credit firms. Given the complexities of the cases – and the sometimes intimidating responses from financial institutions when challenged – the process can be slow. But it can often get results that are beyond individual consumers.

Details of how to make a complaint plus all the necessary documentation can be found on its website – fspo.ie. It can also be contacted at 01 567 7000.