Barclays chairman loses £10,000 in ID fraud scam

According to press reports, the criminal rang a Barclays call centre claiming to be Agius and convinced a member of staff to issue him a credit card in the chairman's name.

The fraudster then walked into a Barclays branch and withdrew £10,000 from Agius' personal bank account.

In a statement on the incident, a Barclays spokesman says: "It was down to human error, procedures were not followed fully and we have learned from it."

"This is an ongoing battle, with professional fraudsters, in which we constantly review and refine the way we work to protect all our customers," says the bank.

Barclays is reported to have initiated a security review following the incident and a new system of codes and passwords for senior executives has been put in place to prevent a repeat of the incidents, according to reports.

The bank says Aguis - who earns £800,000 a year plus bonuses - has been fully reimbursed.

"All Barclays customers, from the chairman downwards, have a 100% fraud guarantee as long as they take reasonable care of their information," says the spokesman.