A COMPANY director was left stunned when he found two Santander bank accounts had been opened in his name, despite him never having spoken to the company.

Mark Jones, 44, who has been a director of Precision Engineering Limited in Monmouth for five-and-a-half years, found out the accounts had been opened fraudulently by people using his details off the Companies House website, where all directors of private companies have to be registered.

The site only displays Mr Jones’ name, address, date of birth and business, yet the information was enough for the fraudsters to open the accounts and use the overdraft facilities.

Mr Jones, whose colleagues managing director Ian Davies and quality director Ross James were also targeted, has been battling for an apology from the bank since the incident last November.

He said: “When I got home I found two welcome packs for new current accounts with Santander, which I found strange given I have never banked with them before.

“I’m furious, how should anyone be able to apply for and successfully open three bank accounts with one bank on the same day having provided only a name, address and date of birth?

“In my opinion, Santander demonstrated a blatant lack of control and responsibility in allowing this to happen and as such needs to acknowledge this and make prompt and appropriate change to their systems.”

MPfor Monmouth, David Davies, who Mr Jones contacted over the incident, said: “I think Santander owes a full explanation detailing how this happened and what is being done to prevent it from happening again.”

A spokesman for the bank said they had been aware of the fraud before Mr Jones had even registered it had taken place and that the accounts were shut down within 24 hours of the fraud taking place.

The spokesman said: “We take incidents of fraud against our customers and in the case of Mr Jones, people who are not our customers, extremely seriously.

We, like all banks, spend a huge amount of money on fraud protection.

“Our systems detected the fraud and shut down the accounts very quickly and Mr Jones was not financially disadvantaged.

“If he would like to discuss the matter further, we are happy to do so.”