Couple lose £120k in email scam
Discussion
People need to remember that an email is as secure as a postcard through the front door!
The victims are lucky that they weren't told that the payment had not gone through (by the scammers).
Some victims are fooled into sending the same amount several times...
All you can do is phone to check bank details, or send a cheque perhaps.
The victims are lucky that they weren't told that the payment had not gone through (by the scammers).
Some victims are fooled into sending the same amount several times...
All you can do is phone to check bank details, or send a cheque perhaps.
OddCat said:
TurricanII said:
The victims are lucky that they weren't told that the payment had not gone through (by the scammers).
Eh ??Riley Blue said:
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.
Breadvan72 said:
My bank (Co-op) is so useless in its algorithm-driven post stable door anti-fraud measures that it froze my account after I made a fairly chunky payment of income tax using my debit card. The payment was to a legit HMRC account, and I was in a rush as I was travelling and had left the payment to the last day. The bank then had a wobbly and stopped me spending fifteen quid on petrol. The same system routinely blocks my card every time I try to buy car insurance, and intermittently when I use Amazon. I have the same weary conversation every time and get the block lifted.
I was quite impressed with HSBC's anti-fraud squad. I bought a second hand car from a main dealer and put down the cash I received from the sale of one car as a deposit and paid for the rest of the car on my debit card to an account that had the funds for the rest of it in. As it was a reasonable amount of money, they had to phone it through Merchant Services who asked numerous questions and literally the moment they hit the go button, my mobile rang and it was the HSBC fraud people.Breadvan72 said:
My bank (Co-op) is so useless in its algorithm-driven post stable door anti-fraud measures that it froze my account after I made a fairly chunky payment of income tax using my debit card. The payment was to a legit HMRC account, and I was in a rush as I was travelling and had left the payment to the last day. The bank then had a wobbly and stopped me spending fifteen quid on petrol. The same system routinely blocks my card every time I try to buy car insurance, and intermittently when I use Amazon. I have the same weary conversation every time and get the block lifted.
Both my Santander (business) and Nationwide cards get occasionally refused when travelling, sometimes after having already been used abroad on the same trip. Phoning them to deal with it might cost £20+ if in Dubai or similar, so I won't do it.My Halifax card I cannot recollect ever being knocked back anywhere. This is obviously the one to clone or steal. I always have this one as a safety net. I put £8000 on it in June as part payment for a bike and half expected a call to verify. Never happened, went straight through.
I
cmaguire said:
Both my Santander (business) and Nationwide cards get occasionally refused when travelling, sometimes after having already been used abroad on the same trip. Phoning them to deal with it might cost £20+ if in Dubai or similar, so I won't do it.
My Halifax card I cannot recollect ever being knocked back anywhere. This is obviously the one to clone or steal. I always have this one as a safety net. I put £8000 on it in June as part payment for a bike and half expected a call to verify. Never happened, went straight through.
I
actually the wrong way round. The halifax algorithms are pretty damn sophisticated. they look at the movement of the user to track payments, patterns in what is being bought, creating a profile of the customer and what they usually do/don't do.My Halifax card I cannot recollect ever being knocked back anywhere. This is obviously the one to clone or steal. I always have this one as a safety net. I put £8000 on it in June as part payment for a bike and half expected a call to verify. Never happened, went straight through.
I
has worked damn well for me, blocked the only fraudulent transaction that has ever been on my account, and only flagged up a few of my legit transactions which were things like me phoning to make a payment in indonesia and australia, which to be fair I am glad got flagged!
Also if you are going abroad, just phone your bank before you go and let them know!
Efbe said:
actually the wrong way round. The halifax algorithms are pretty damn sophisticated. they look at the movement of the user to track payments, patterns in what is being bought, creating a profile of the customer and what they usually do/don't do.
has worked damn well for me, blocked the only fraudulent transaction that has ever been on my account, and only flagged up a few of my legit transactions which were things like me phoning to make a payment in indonesia and australia, which to be fair I am glad got flagged!
Also if you are going abroad, just phone your bank before you go and let them know!
I'm not in the habit of making £8000 payments to bike shops.has worked damn well for me, blocked the only fraudulent transaction that has ever been on my account, and only flagged up a few of my legit transactions which were things like me phoning to make a payment in indonesia and australia, which to be fair I am glad got flagged!
Also if you are going abroad, just phone your bank before you go and let them know!
Or telling anyone when I go abroad, as I don't do family holidays booked a year in advance.
Breadvan72 said:
My bank (Co-op) is so useless in its algorithm-driven post stable door anti-fraud measures that it froze my account after I made a fairly chunky payment of income tax using my debit card. The payment was to a legit HMRC account, and I was in a rush as I was travelling and had left the payment to the last day. The bank then had a wobbly and stopped me spending fifteen quid on petrol. The same system routinely blocks my card every time I try to buy car insurance, and intermittently when I use Amazon. I have the same weary conversation every time and get the block lifted.
It will be very interesting to see if Smile (hence also Co-op) query the unusual activity on my account. I’ve just started channelling daily transfers from one place to another via that account, because (a) the destination account will only accept transfers in from the Smile account and (b) I’m too tight-fisted to pay for a CHAPS transfer to do it all in one go. Frankly I’ll be unimpressed if they don’t query it, because it must look like blatant money laundering.cmaguire said:
I'm not in the habit of making £8000 payments to bike shops.
Or telling anyone when I go abroad, as I don't do family holidays booked a year in advance.
it's really not hard, just tell your bank you are going abroad, it matters not if you give them a years notice, a week or an hour. I think for some banks you can even tell them online or send a text or send an e-mail.Or telling anyone when I go abroad, as I don't do family holidays booked a year in advance.
AndStilliRise said:
shakotan said:
People falling for these scams is just tax on the stupid.
I think you will find that it was a complicated scam, not detectable and actually quite smart. Think it would have caught a number of people out. shakotan said:
AndStilliRise said:
shakotan said:
People falling for these scams is just tax on the stupid.
I think you will find that it was a complicated scam, not detectable and actually quite smart. Think it would have caught a number of people out. They did call the solicitor, asking for details of bank account to be e-mailed over.
Later that day they received an e-mail from the solicitor with bank account details included.
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