A woman found £8,000 was taken out of her bank account and spent in a number of shops while she was exercising after her locker was raided when she was at the gym. Charlotte, who does not want her full name published, told the BBC she was exercising at a Virgin Active gym when her belongings, including her bank cards and phone, were stolen.
Charlotte told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours programme. "I was completely stuck, I just froze." The thieves went on a spending spree - including £700 spent at Selfridges.
Charlotte was told her card had been used to make about £8,000 worth of purchases from her current account, with goods bought from two Apple stores and Selfridges within 90 minutes.
She was then told the thieves had also transferred her £10,000 of life savings into her current account. "I thought 'that's everything. I've lost everything'," she said. "I just couldn't believe how much damage they had done."
Charlotte said she had a call from the bank a few days later and was told she would still be £5,000 out of pocket, even though some of the cash had been recovered.
"I was very rudely and bluntly told 'you will not be getting your money back. It's your fault because they've used your PIN'," she said.
"I was also accused of writing my PIN down and keeping it on a bit of paper in my bag. I was just left absolutely broken because all that hope that I had, that I was clinging onto just suddenly melted away. It was heartbreaking.
"I just didn't know how I suddenly went from being the victim of something horrible to being made to feel like the criminal."
Charlotte believes thieves accessed her PIN via her personal banking app. Santander apologised for initially "incorrectly declining her refund request and for the customer service she received", and it has paid her £750 in compensation.
It said its security log" showed there had been "no compromise with our mobile banking app".
Virgin Active said it was assisting police with their inquiries and "fully investigating all of the circumstances around the brief failure of the access gates".
