Dear Claudienne,

On Monday, May 29, 2023, I received a call from Scotiabank security division, advising me of some suspicious activity and requesting verification on some recent transactions on my account. The agent mentioned a few Apple store purchases which I was unaware of. I asked how many transactions he had seen and he said that in total there were about five or six. I was advised to visit my branch and a stop was placed on the card.

On Tuesday, May 30, the following day, I visited the HWT branch and reported the call I had received from the bank’s security to a customer service representative. She printed out all my account activities for the month of May from which I highlighted 44 fraudulent transactions, totalling $668,940.52. An incident claim for the amount was created, and I received a copy with an incident number.

A new bank card was issued to me and to which I assigned a new pin. The old card was destroyed by the representative.

I was informed by the representative that it could take up to 60 days for resolution.

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023, I received a letter of acknowledgement from Scotiabank for the disputed amount of $668,940.52, this letter also stated a resolution time of 60 days.

On June 1, a deposit of $125,000.00 was made to my account but when I attempted to use the new bank card to withdraw cash at a Scotia ATM, I discovered that a balance of less than JMD$15,000.00 was in the account. I printed a mini statement at the ATM and saw several transactions totalling JMD$111,602.96. I visited the branch the following day June 2, 2023 and spoke with the same representative as my previous visit. After expressing the shock of another possible breach with my account, she told me that there were several pending transactions on hold for the fraudster. She said that since the account was depleted, the fraudulent transactions were awaiting additional funds to be cleared as they were already approved. She created a new incident claim with a second incident number. I was informed by the representative; that it could take up to 60 days for resolution on this second claim.

Throughout these 60 days, numerous calls were made to Scotiabank for updates on the investigation but no update was ever provided.

Throughout August, I was unable to get any information from Scotiabank customer support, but on September 1, 2023, I printed a statement that showed four (4) reimbursement transactions, two (2) for JMD$17,335.88 and two (2) for JMD$38,465.60 totalling JMD$111,602.96. As this was the amount stolen from my account and that had been recorded on the first incident report on June 2, 2023, I immediately called the bank to try to find out when my other claim would be resolved.

On September 6, 2023, a customer service agent informed me that my claim was closed as all the funds had been returned to my account.

I told the agent that I had not received reimbursement on my second incident claim.

The agent instructed me to e-mail photos of all fraudulent transactions for which I had not been reimbursed along with the second incident number to ecrcustomercare@scotiabank.com and I did so.

When I got no response I went back to the HWT Scotia branch on September 8, and explained my ongoing dilemma. The agent checked the system, but did not find any information on the second incident claim for which I had not been reimbursed.

She proceeded to create a new incident number and told me that she had linked the new number to the previous incident number for reference. She expressed the hope that it wouldn’t take another 90 days.

It’s now October 9, 2023 and to date despite my several calls to Scotiabank, I have still not been reimbursed the $668,940.52 that is owed to me.

I would appreciate your help in this matter.

GB

Dear GB,

Tell Claudienne has been in communication with Scotiabank and notes that you were reimbursed the $668,940.52 in early November 2023.
Tell Cl
audienne received the following e-mail from Scotiabank:

“Thank you for bringing the matter concerning our valued customer to our attention. We were able to identify the reported transactions as being fraudulent as such we have since reimbursed him for the full amount.

We also wish to use this medium to apologise to GB for the delays experienced that were partially due to a processing delay. He has since been contacted by our team and is now satisfied that the discrepancies reported on his account have been favourably resolved.

We commend him for his vigilance and take this opportunity to encourage all banking customers to exercise caution and monitor their accounts for any suspicious activity using our digital platforms and by signing up for ScotiaAlerts.

We thank GB for his patience and thank all our customers for their loyalty.”

We wish you all the best.

Have a problem with a store, utility company? Telephone 876-936-9346 or Cell # 876-484-1349 or write to: Tell Claudienne c/o Sunday Finance, Jamaica Observer, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5; or e-mail:edwardsc@jamaicaobserver.com. Please include a contact phone number.