If your bank details were ever stolen, would you want something to be done about it?

Sadly this isn't always possible. That's a worrying thought isn't it?

This is the scenario we encountered recently when doing research into romance scams online. During the weekend of 18-20 April 2020, we obtained six bank accounts from various banks worldwide where the scammer expected us to deposit funds to secure their release from overseas contracts. These accounts were all live and all in the names of unsuspecting victims.

When we tried to report these accounts to the respective bank or building society we were met with many obstacles. Many of these establishments didn't have suitable mechanisms in place to report fraud of this nature. This is quite disturbing seeing as online scams are on the rise. Over the duration of this weekend, our fictitious character was asked to deposit £35,000 into bank accounts by four scammers, some of these were UK banks. This is just one person. Thousands of people are being scammed each day and currently banks and building societies are not doing enough to protect the funds of their customers.

On againstscammers.com, we checked out the websites of over 70 UK banks and building societies to see how easy it was to report bank account fraud. The results were mixed. A large proportion of these institutions fell short of what we as members of the public expect in terms of protecting customers. We contacted these institutions to make them aware of this and so they could put us straight if we had missed the information. At the time of creating this petition, we have had no replies from these institutions.

We have a clear vision of what it is we are trying to get changed. There are four key requirements that will greatly improve an institution’s ability to deal with a report of a fraudulent account. All requirements are measurable so their compliance will be easy to assess. These requirements are listed below.

• Clear visibility of fraud reporting links within the top third of a financial institution’s website
• A phone number to report account fraud within 1 or a maximum of 2 clicks of visiting a financial institution’s website home page
• 24/7 reporting where possible
• Fraud education pages to be mandatory on all financial institution’s websites

As well as this petition, we are also writing to the banking regulators to request these changes. We are writing to Catherine Bradley MBE Chairman of the Audit Committee at the Financial Conduct Authority, Rob Elsey Director of Technology at the Bank of England and Andrew Bailey Governor of the Bank Of England and member of the Prudential Regulation Committee.

If we can convince the UK banks and building societies to change their practise, we are hoping to launch stage 2 where we can ask worldwide banks to adhere to the same guidance. Without your help, nothing will change and scammers will have an easier ride in scamming yet more victims out of their hard earned savings.