A fraudster posing as chairman of Barclays (Marcus Agius), tricked his own bank’s credit card arm into issuing a new card before taking £10,000 cash from his account. The new card was wrongly issued after a caller gave card operator Barclaycard some of Agius’s personal details, but staff also failed to follow security guidelines in asking for more information. Like any customer, the chairman later had the money refunded to his account. For the past few months, officials have been blamed for several high-profile losses of personal data held by the government, most notably the loss of two discs containing personal details of 25 million Britons; more than a third of the population. Read Martin Lewis’ article on how to protect yourself, what to look out for and what to do if you think your ID has already been stolen.
January 15, 2008
December 4, 2007
Be sure to spread your savings
Before the run on Northern Rock, savers were only guaranteed a small amount of their savings if a bank were to go bust. 100% of the first £2,000 of your cash back and 90% of the next £33,000. That’s £31,700 of the first £35,000 back. Forget about anything after that. Now the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) guarantees 100% of the first £35,000 of your savings back. So if you have more than £35,000 of saving, be sure not to put all your eggs in one basket. Read Martin Lewis’ guide on how to protect your money.
