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The bank used by a Cambridgeshire family conned out of their lifesavings just before Christmas won’t be offering them compensation.

After the News reported Wilburton couple Mark and Angela Coe had £45,000 taken from their joint account, Santander has said it 'cannot accept responsibility for the losses on the account'.

A spokeswoman for the banking group said that, although it was very sympathetic to Mr and Mrs Coe’s situation, it is not liable because scammers impersonated its security team leading Mrs Coe to mistrust genuine bank staff who contacted her.

Speaking on Thursday (December 29) she said: “We can confirm that Mrs Coe received a text message from a third party purporting to be Santander. Mrs Coe called the number included in the message (which was not a Santander number) and was socially engineered in to revealing some sensitive banking information.

"As a result of this, the fraudsters were able to access the customer’s online banking and make multiple payments.

"In order to pay a new beneficiary a One Time Passcode (OTP) is sent to the customer's registered mobile telephone number, which the customer subsequently divulged to the fraudster, who then used the code to authenticate the payments.

"Santander identified the payments as suspect and sent a text message to the customer's registered mobile, upon which the customer confirmed the payment as genuine, which allowed the fraudster to make further payments. We therefore cannot accept any responsibility for the losses on this account."

"As soon as we were notified of the scam, we contacted the receiving banks to secure any unspent funds. We’re waiting for confirmation from these banks of any money recovered."

During the ordeal the phishing scammers siphoned off funds between accounts Mrs Coe shared with her husband and 80-year-old mother Doreen Kent, swiping all of the family's lifesavings.

The Coes expressed their dismay, saying the text fraudsters sent was 'identical' to the real weekly balance updates Mrs Coe receives from the bank. Then when she called the number on the text they gained her trust because they had access to all her account details.

Mr Coe said: “They had access to absolutely everything, they told her of her direct debits going out, what was going in, absolutely everything.

“They moved money from her mum’s account into ours, then used our account as a holding account and siphoned while she was on the phone all of the funds out of the account.

“I don’t want anybody else to go through what I have been through... I am absolutely devastated, my wife collapsed when she heard [they wouldn't be getting compensation].

The family described the incident as causing a 'most miserable' and 'horrendous Christmas'.