Barclays chief loses cash after conman gets card

LONDON (Reuters) - A fraudster posing as chairman of Barclays tricked his own bank's credit card arm into issuing a new card before taking cash from his account, a Barclaycard source said on Thursday.

The Sun said Chairman Marcus Agius lost 10,000 pounds ($19,560) from his account.

The source said the new card was wrongly issued after a caller gave card operator Barclaycard some of Agius's personal details. But staff failed to follow security guidelines in asking for more information.

Barclaycard said it was not willing to provide details of the case. But like any customer Agius had the money refunded to his account.

"It was down to human error, procedures were not followed fully and we have learned from it," a spokesman said in a statement.

"This is an ongoing battle with professional fraudsters. All Barclays customers, from the chairman downwards, have a 100 percent fraud guarantee as long as they take responsible care of their information."

Card cloning and fraud is a mounting problem with criminals using personal data to impersonate cardholders.

Officials have been blamed for several high-profile losses of personal data held by the government, most notably the loss of two discs containing personal details of 25 million Britons -- more than a third of the population -- by tax authorities.

In December, Chancellor Alistair Darling said there was no sign the discs, which were lost in the post after being sent as unregistered mail by a junior official, had ended up in criminal hands.

(Reporting by Peter Apps; Editing by David Holmes)