A furious man says his life was thrown into chaos after bank chiefs falsely put a fraud warning on his account.
Richard Davidson has hit out after Tesco Bank froze his credit card over Christmas.
The IT worker said his Christmas and New Year were torpedoed after he was unable to buy anything - and it has left him battling to restore his credit history.
He told the Daily Record that the bank added insult to injury by offering him just £250 "slap in the face" compensation.
Richard’s problems started with an overpayment from his Bank of Scotland current account for a loan with Tesco Bank.
BoS tried to get the money back but that triggered a warning in Tesco Bank’s system.
The first Richard knew of the problem was when his credit card provider contacted him to say his card had been stopped.
When he questioned it, they told him Tesco Bank had fingered him as a fraud risk.
IT worker Richard, 33, from Inverness, said: “This has all been a disaster. It has caused a lot of stress and has long term effects on every part of your life. If you don’t have decent credit, it can be hassle with car insurance, home insurance you name it.
“It has made me worried about my whole financial future. Christmas and New Year was a nightmare, there were things I wanted to buy but couldn’t so it kind of overshadowed the whole festive period.
“It has been terrible and I have not put a foot wrong.”
Richard is unhappy with the way Tesco Bank dealt with his complaint.
He said: “I first found out about this in mid December when I got a letter out of the blue from my credit card provider saying they were shutting my account. There was no warning or anything, they were just closing down my card.
“When I went on to them, they said I needed to apply for a data access request.
"I did that and found that Tesco Bank had a fraud warning against my account pointing the finger firmly at me saying I had been involved in some sort of fraudulent activity.
“I have been stressed out my head with all this. I found out that it all stemmed from a direct debit from my current account which should have been cancelled and wasn’t. My bank then put in an indemnity claim which Tesco Bank red flagged as some sort of fraud due to a blatant admin error.
“They have admitted they are in the wrong but I have been upset and frustrated by the whole horrible experience. I only heard about this when my credit card was shut down, Tesco Bank never came to me to discuss this or mentioned the fact they wrongly thought there was fraudulent activity.
“Once they looked into it and admitted they were in the wrong, they came back to me with an offer of £250 compensation which is a joke, a total slap in the face for all the hassle and torment I have been through.
“I just don’t want people to go through all this. There will be people sitting with these fraud markers against their name and they won’t even have a clue that it is happening. It is shocking and there is no accountability."
Tesco Bank said the fraud marker was removed within six working days of being notified and that the compensation had been upped to £500.
They added: “Based on information held at the time a fraud marker was placed on this account. The customer contacted us on December 29 and we reviewed our decision based on the new information.”
