Santander customer devastated after having life savings stolen

Charlotte Morgan was victim to the fraud after a thief stole her rucksack which contained her mobile phone, bank card and keys. She took to Twitter to explain her situation.

@morganbroadcast said: “I stored my belongings in a locker and began my workout.

“Little did I know this gym session would end up costing me £5000+.”

She explained that the thief had spent over £4,000 in two different Apple stores and over £700 in Selfridges.

She was confused as it would have been “impossible” for fraudsters to guess her PIN.

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Ms Morgan said a “huge proportion” of her life savings had been stolen.

Santander urges customers to report their cards lost as soon as they cannot find it to avoid identity fraud.

On their website it states that people should tell them as soon as they notice that their card has been lost or stolen.

Britons can freeze and unfreeze their card in the Mobile Banking app.

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James Jones, the head of consumer affairs at the credit reference agency Experian, said: “The most important thing is safeguarding your personal information, whether it’s biographical or sign-on credentials – for online banking or Amazon, or anything like that.

“If someone gets access to one of your financial products, that can open up more opportunities for them.”

He urged Britons to take active steps to mitigate losses such as using password generators.

Mr Jones said: “Password managers can be a great way of creating strong passwords and keeping track of them.

“For example, LastPass will generate and store passwords in an online vault that you can access through an authenticator on your phone.”

Santander told Express.co.uk: “We take protecting our customers’ accounts extremely seriously and have comprehensive fraud prevention systems in place.

“We are investigating the details outlined by our customer on social media as a matter of urgency and contacted them as soon as we were alerted to the case to discuss the issue further.”