Story by ADAM LAZZARI A MARCH woman is trying to discover how her life savings were wiped from her bank account. Rosie Mitchell, 54, was shocked to discover that more than £3,000 had gone missing when her Barclay s debit card was rejected as she attempted

Story by ADAM LAZZARI

A MARCH woman is trying to discover how her life savings were wiped from her bank account.

Rosie Mitchell, 54, was shocked to discover that more than £3,000 had gone missing when her Barclay's debit card was rejected as she attempted to pay for her daughter's driving test online last Wednesday.

Barclays put all the money back into the account on Monday, but she is still unaware of what happened.

Mrs Mitchell said: "I couldn't believe it when my card was rejected and I was told that I was more than £500 overdrawn; I told them there must have been a mistake. I don't regularly check my statements but I'm pretty careful with my money and don't spend much."

When she contacted her bank, Mrs Mitchell has been told that three large amounts: £1,206, £1,202 and £858 were taken out of her account on June 27.

Mrs Mitchell does have her suspicions about where the money has gone.

She said: "I've bought a few things over the internet and telephone recently. There was one particularly suspicious incident when I ordered some clothes from a supplement magazine of a national newspaper. They asked for my account details before I even placed an order. When I phoned back to query this, I was told that this is not their policy. It's all very unusual."

She added: "I'm not going to spend a penny of what I've had back until I know exactly what happened to my money.

"I'm very relieved to have it back, but money is not the main issue here. I'm more concerned about the fact that someone can come in and disrupt my life like this. I'm lucky that I have a caring and supportive family around me to help me deal with this. Many people don't."

A Barclays spokesman said: "We are aware of the circumstances regarding Mrs Mitchell and will be in touch with her shortly to reassure her that her money is safe with the bank and to suggest security measures she should consider.

"We have various security measures in place to protect customers like chip and pin and we offer discounts on virus protection for internet use.

"Fraudsters are fraudsters and they will do everything they can to get people's money so we always advise our customers to be cautious and vigilant; don't have your pin number written down, shield your pin when you are at bank machines, don't respond to e-mails when you don't know where they came from and only pay for things online with reputable internet sites.