Some banks take more than an hour to answer calls to their fraud helplines.
The fraud helplines on offer from some of our biggest banks and building societies are leaving scam victims frustrated with extraordinarily long wait times, with the double whammy of large fees for making those calls in the first place.
That’s according to a new investigation by Which?, who used a team of mystery shoppers to call 11 banks and building societies 12 times over the course of a week.
The calls were made at different times of the day, to get a more rounded idea of how long it took for calls to be answered.
Once the mystery shopper got through to an employee, they then ended the call.
If you believe you have been scammed, then the immediate advice is to call your bank or building society as soon as possible to inform them.
The idea is that they can then act, perhaps freezing your account so that the scammers can’t make off with any more of your cash.
Unfortunately, just getting through to speak to someone takes an awful lot of time.
Which? found that on average it took banks and building societies 10 minutes and 51 seconds to answer calls, and on two occasions callers were left waiting more than an hour for the call to be answered.
