My mother fell victim to a scam in November last year.

The scammer told her that her e-commerce account had been hacked into by showing her "illegal transactions" made on her account.

He claimed to be the platform's head of security and said he would help her to re-secure her account and get back the money which had been charged to her credit cards. To do this, he required her credit card details and one-time passwords.

She lost a five-figure sum on four credit cards from three banks.

Some questions continue to haunt her.

First, why was no alert triggered when multiple transactions were made using her credit cards in foreign currencies?

She could not have been in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, India and Indonesia in that short time.

Only one bank was alert enough to spot the irregularity and stop all transactions immediately. One other bank did it much later, and the third had to be instructed by my mother to block the card.

Second, why was no alert triggered when the transactions exceeded her credit limit? In one case, it was 1.8 times her limit.

Claire Bostock