Couple lose £120k in email scam
Discussion
Durzel said:
Dissolving the company after the scam had taken place is a bit suspect though non? Pretty strange coincidence.
Company was 'struck off' so not voluntarily dissolved. Likely to be for non submission of regulatory annual returns. The sort if thing you would do if, say, you'd only set the whole thing up to scam people. Just sayin'......There is more than one company with the same common director similarly struck off. I wonder what passed through the bank accounts of the others ?
If only we had, say, a dedicated fraud section of the police. Maybe call it the 'Fraud Squad' for added sweeney style gravitas......
OddCat said:
A quick search on Companies House shows that the company was set up in 2015 for medical care / nursing home activity purposes. And the sole director was a Mrs Ntolera-Mujungu. A Malawian national. And the company was subsequently (recently) struck off - presumably for non-submission of annual returns.
This feels like it is more likely to be type 3. If true, it could be argued, that Nat West have facilitated a vehicle to be used for fraud ?
If you do a more extensive search you'll find a number of other companies she and/or her husband are associated with. Most have been struck off and dissolved.This feels like it is more likely to be type 3. If true, it could be argued, that Nat West have facilitated a vehicle to be used for fraud ?
The only active one is in the entertainment business. That too has had an application for strike-off which has recently been discontinued.
Here are the happy couple, and here, Btw, he lists the Commonwealth Secretariat as his occupation at Companies House.
It could be one or both are up to their necks or have been unwittingly used as a conduit by the real perpetrators.
The only way to know is if those responsible for investigating fraud decide to take it seriously and are willing to devote resources to it.
AndStilliRise said:
Wished the police were more resourced to do something about this. If the government keeps cutting public services no wonder they have no time to do this stuff.
The police have plenty of resources. It is just that they are badly / inefficiently deployed. Try watching "can't pay we'll take it away". Almost every time either the bailiffs / court officers, or the debtor, call the police. For what is a civil matter. But try calling the police when your garage has been broken into and your stuff stolen.
Or Police Interceptors where they race to the scene of an accident to find.......half a dozen police cars there already. So they get out of their car and ask the same questions of witnesses that other officers will already have asked.
Obviously, if the lady in question here had said something nasty on Facebook about the people who've lost money then the police would be all over it like a rash.......
Nat West is the key here.
If the money in the account had genuinely belonged to the company, and had been 'stolen', then the company owners would be getting excited and Nat West would almost certainly be refunding. And trying to work out how the money had been stolen.
But the money wasn't the companies money so the company owners don't give a toss (convenient) and are not demanding recompense from Nat West. So Nat West don't give a toss either.
Given that the company never submitted accounts it is possible that it never traded. And that it was set up with ill intent. Quite elaborate to set up a business, register it at Companies House, set up a bank account etc with all of the validation around that. Seems unlikely that it would be possible to do this without the real people being involved (ie that Mrs N-M knew nothing about the business or the account).
Seems highly unlikely that fraudsters would choose a random limited company account to which to send the money unless they controlled that account. There are questions to be answered here. Just needs someone to ask the right people the right ones..........
If the money in the account had genuinely belonged to the company, and had been 'stolen', then the company owners would be getting excited and Nat West would almost certainly be refunding. And trying to work out how the money had been stolen.
But the money wasn't the companies money so the company owners don't give a toss (convenient) and are not demanding recompense from Nat West. So Nat West don't give a toss either.
Given that the company never submitted accounts it is possible that it never traded. And that it was set up with ill intent. Quite elaborate to set up a business, register it at Companies House, set up a bank account etc with all of the validation around that. Seems unlikely that it would be possible to do this without the real people being involved (ie that Mrs N-M knew nothing about the business or the account).
Seems highly unlikely that fraudsters would choose a random limited company account to which to send the money unless they controlled that account. There are questions to be answered here. Just needs someone to ask the right people the right ones..........
turbobloke said:
Yes it's possible that both the email account and bank account had been hacked.
Hmmm....but the money was drawn out as £20,000 per day in cash at a branch. So not exactly hacking. I can't believe Nat West didn't smell a rat. Or have some kind of account activity algorithm that flagged odd activity. I'm still betting that the account was dormant prior to the credit and 6 x £20k withdrawals. If the money was drawn out by persons not authorised to do so then Nat West should be refunding the company regardless of whether the money actually belonged to the company (given that Nat West clearly believed that it did otherwise they would not have let anyone draw it out). The fact that the company owners aren't bothered doesn't really absolve Nat West. Unless the company owners authorised the withdrawals of course or have subsequently ratified them..............
The whole thing stinks - but no-one is bothered.
If I were Mr Scott (not his real name) I'd be getting myself down to Northfleet to the address of the directors and to Nat West to do some investigating. Alternatively, I could just have a moan to the press and let them print a half cocked / poorly investigated piece.....
Efbe said:
I highly doubt the thieves would go to so much effort to acquire this money then just send it to their own account!
They absolutely would if they then planned to "re-locate" back to the other side of the world afterwards where they know no action can be taken. This happens all the time with mortgage fraud / property hijack (selling or re-mortgaging a property you don't own and disappearing with the proceeds). Either they are in on it or they should be involved in the investigation to resolve it. I know where my bet is being placed.....
Key point. Is the director of the company in question still in the UK ?
OddCat said:
turbobloke said:
Yes it's possible that both the email account and bank account had been hacked.
Hmmm....but the money was drawn out as £20,000 per day in cash at a branch. So not exactly hacking. I can't believe Nat West didn't smell a rat. Or have some kind of account activity algorithm that flagged odd activity. I'm still betting that the account was dormant prior to the credit and 6 x £20k withdrawals. If the money was drawn out by persons not authorised to do so then Nat West should be refunding the company regardless of whether the money actually belonged to the company (given that Nat West clearly believed that it did otherwise they would not have let anyone draw it out). The fact that the company owners aren't bothered doesn't really absolve Nat West. Unless the company owners authorised the withdrawals of course or have subsequently ratified them..............
The whole thing stinks - but no-one is bothered.
If I were Mr Scott (not his real name) I'd be getting myself down to Northfleet to the address of the directors and to Nat West to do some investigating. Alternatively, I could just have a moan to the press and let them print a half cocked / poorly investigated piece.....
Another possible option is that someone inside Natwest used the account realising it was dormant. Fraud gangs do infiltrate call centre's and get people into positions within branches.
There is a low chance that Natwest/RBS has a system that detects this stuff, it relies on staff to notice and report, the RBS IT system was run on a shoestring and anything that wasn't required was junked (they ran the whole for about two years without any easy way to audit user input / use) and there was one case of a manager at RBS running up a massive loan book without anyone realising. IT systems are written by humans.
PurpleMoonlight said:
I have noticed that lately solicitors have only been notifying their client account in writing via snail mail.
Got this far, will read the rest if i have time later.Yes. Many Solicitors are now only sending out bank details by post.
Most Firms have had disclaimers on their e-mails for at least a year, if not more, that clearly state that e-mail is not 100% secure and that our bank details will not change during the course of the matter. In addition to this all clients are asked to call to verify the bank details they have before sending us any funds.
Warning said:
CYBERCRIME ALERT: BANK DETAILS Please be aware that there is a significant risk posed by cyber fraud specifically affecting email accounts and bank account details. PLEASE NOTE that our bank account details WILL NOT change during the course of a transaction, and we will NOT change our bank details via email. Please be careful to check account details with us. We will not accept any responsibility if you transfer money into an incorrect account.
OddCat said:
turbobloke said:
Yes it's possible that both the email account and bank account had been hacked.
Hmmm....but the money was drawn out as £20,000 per day in cash at a branch. So not exactly hacking.Does the bank have more stringent processes for moving over £20k? Possibly so.
Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
Riley Blue said:
I'm probably being incredibly dense here but if he needs to pay HMRC £120,000 inheritance tax and went into his own bank with his debit card to do it, couldn't he have paid it direct without invoving his solicitor's account?
Yes.The account number and sort code for paying IHT are freely published on HMRC’s web site. Simply do a BACS or CHAPS transfer direct to HMRC, putting your IHT reference number as the reference on the transfer. Job done - no need to involve the solicitor’s bank account at all.
Where was it said that they drew out £20,000 cash a day? The article says that "£20,000 was withdrawn", but that could just as easily mean it was transferred to another account.
EDIT: Still ought to have tripped fraud checks though, if the company was otherwise dormant or the movement of money was atypical.
EDIT: Still ought to have tripped fraud checks though, if the company was otherwise dormant or the movement of money was atypical.
Edited by Durzel on Tuesday 24th October 11:50
bigandclever said:
OddCat said:
Hmmm....but the money was drawn out as £20,000 per day in cash at a branch
Was it? I missed that bit ...https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/21/coup...
"......but which instead went to an account in Kent that was systematically emptied of £20,000 in cash every day for the next six days".
turbobloke said:
bigandclever said:
my branch has a fit if you want £500 out of them
HSBC?They have a reputation to shake off but still manage to give their customers a shake-down.
I must confess, on first encountering this thread my feeling was that they (Mr & Mrs Name Changed) should have been more careful.
But the more it has gone on, and the more we have found out about the parties involved, the more sorry I feel for them.
There was clearly a deception followed by some 'laundering' of the proceeds of crime.
The Guardian were hopeless suggesting that Lloyds were to blame (they were not). Actually, the Guardian were hopeless. Period. Their investigation was woeful.
The fault here lies with the Company through whose account the money passed (and that is decidedly iffy in itself) and / or Nat West.
I'm genuinely surprised that Fraud Action are not all over this like a rash........
But the more it has gone on, and the more we have found out about the parties involved, the more sorry I feel for them.
There was clearly a deception followed by some 'laundering' of the proceeds of crime.
The Guardian were hopeless suggesting that Lloyds were to blame (they were not). Actually, the Guardian were hopeless. Period. Their investigation was woeful.
The fault here lies with the Company through whose account the money passed (and that is decidedly iffy in itself) and / or Nat West.
I'm genuinely surprised that Fraud Action are not all over this like a rash........
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