Scam Afternmath
Discussion
As previously stated, Action Fraud is useless & totally uninterested in any fraud not involving large sums.
I took out a new credit card & the first (hence only time) I used it was to book an hotel in London for a stay two weeks later.
A couple of days later I noticed a £350 purchase on the card with a white goods company. I phoned the company to cancel the order to be told it had been delivered to an address in Essex (I live in Gloucestershire).
I phoned the credit card company & received a refund in a couple of days.
Phoned Action Fraud who were totally disinterested despite me being able to show that an employee at a certain hotel must have been involved. How many previous & future frauds would that employee be involved in?
I took out a new credit card & the first (hence only time) I used it was to book an hotel in London for a stay two weeks later.
A couple of days later I noticed a £350 purchase on the card with a white goods company. I phoned the company to cancel the order to be told it had been delivered to an address in Essex (I live in Gloucestershire).
I phoned the credit card company & received a refund in a couple of days.
Phoned Action Fraud who were totally disinterested despite me being able to show that an employee at a certain hotel must have been involved. How many previous & future frauds would that employee be involved in?
ninja_eli said:
Look carefully at the email address domain name. is it @ajbell.co.uk or is it @ajbell.cc? Search for the company independently and contact them directly.
Email clients have buggered this up in recent years by looking all 'clean' and 'minimalist'But all it does is hide the reality that most scammers have a really obviously wrong domain name or email address... but it's hidden away.
On the iPhone you used to be able to snoop at a URL link, but now when you press and hold it loads a preview, giving away your IP address and possibly loading in cookies/hidden pixels for tracking etc.
Emails require a press to see the extra detail of the email address proper.
Outlook on the PC can be a real pig to just see the email address entered. Ie, these scams where you end up in a loop with an imposter (say a solicitor/conveyancer selling a house), but the email address is hidden so you can't check it. Even in Outlook on the web browser, it's several clicks and I think opens up a new screen to show you the actual account and email address... it's so clunky.
I think a lot of the issues around fraud are just because so much useful information is obfuscated or hidden "because" design decision.
Even extending to banks. HSBC didn't have NS&I in their list of companies for sending money. NS&I.
The whole lot could be shaken up top to bottom but politicians seem uninterested in doing actual work. I fear it's because they're more concerned about business interests than people interests... which is seemingly how the world is going now. Businesses and scammers get the free run to make money.
My next tip of the day for this:
If you receive a Final Letter from your bank, declining a refund, do another Data Subject Access Request and ask for the Complaint file itself.
This was useful to yield more information to match up how the decision was made versus the material that we have already harvested on previous DSAR's.
If you receive a Final Letter from your bank, declining a refund, do another Data Subject Access Request and ask for the Complaint file itself.
This was useful to yield more information to match up how the decision was made versus the material that we have already harvested on previous DSAR's.
Smurfsarepeopletoo said:
And the email you get from solicitors when purchasing a property, it tells you it needs the deposit and provides bank details, and it turns out that when double checked, the email address is slightly different than the genuine one, but not enough that it is obvious.
When.purchasing our lady property, I was a little paranoid about this as the daughter of friend of a friend, transferred her £80k deposit to a scammer, because the solicitors email had been hacked, and it took 9 months for the soliticor's insurer to sort it out.So the first visit to give my ID, I asked them.to write down the bank details, they'd be using.
In a much later email they sent the same bank details, but jusr before paying our deposit, i rang them again and got them to give me the details over the phone.
Trust no one. That's what I say.
ninja_eli said:
And to answer why the scammers cannot be traced, what happens most often is the account is in the name of a mule. That mule thinks they are getting 10% of a business transaction (or they know they are in on a scam but hey) and then when they are caught they are unable to provide any details of the person they were working with (either they really don't know, or they're too scared to say).
The money often leaves via international payments (bounces around several accounts and then gets withdrawn) or it goes via cryptocurrency. Transferwise used to open accounts with just emailed in passport and proof of address, and gave access to the account right away, before the card arrived at the address. By the time the unwitting mule had worked out why they had a transferwise account arrive in the post, the scam had taken place. They don't remember opening an account at Transferwise, but it might not clock that the council emailing them to ask their for id and address proof wasn't really the council.
r.
The more I've heard about this aspect from ninja_eli and a Police Specialist the more the people who act as money mules, need to be treated the same as drugs mules. The money often leaves via international payments (bounces around several accounts and then gets withdrawn) or it goes via cryptocurrency. Transferwise used to open accounts with just emailed in passport and proof of address, and gave access to the account right away, before the card arrived at the address. By the time the unwitting mule had worked out why they had a transferwise account arrive in the post, the scam had taken place. They don't remember opening an account at Transferwise, but it might not clock that the council emailing them to ask their for id and address proof wasn't really the council.
r.
This does seem to be one of the key things that needs to be tackled head on, and equate to jail time, to disrupt the flow of cash.
A really timely and 'on theme' article in the FT by Paul Lewis of Radio 4 Money Box.
'Banks must act to control fraud epidemic - Don't think you're too smart to get conned'
Possibly behind a paywall..
https://www.ft.com/content/ade560a5-f8cd-4eca-b8a0...
'Banks must act to control fraud epidemic - Don't think you're too smart to get conned'
Possibly behind a paywall..
https://www.ft.com/content/ade560a5-f8cd-4eca-b8a0...
My sympathies. Having seen something similar up close I know how devastating this can be to someone.
I think at one time I would have been on the side of those saying that people should do their own due diligence and suffer their own gullibility. Obviously there has to be a point at which individuals are responsible, but it is not clear exactly how much an unsophisticated retail investor can be expected to do.
In our case, the lady in her 70s had received phone calls, emails and letters apparently from a well known bank, using real employees names and even a domain name that was plausible, as ninja eli outlined above. They were offering bonds in well known companies with a high but not ludicrously so yield. I think it was about 7%, from memory.
The bank had then allowed two highly unusual transactions for tens of thousands of pounds to brand new accounts without a murmur. Just the same click through warnings she would get if she sent £20 to her granddaughter for her birthday. Another major high street bank had opened the accounts the money was sent to and had apparently let the money then be sent abroad (and beyond trace) without raising an alarm.
I just don't think that's good enough.
Banks make a big play of being by your side and fluent in finance, surely they can spot when an old lady who probably hasn't had a transaction over £1,000 in 5 years, suddenly sends half her life savings to a brand new account at the other end of the country, who then immediately send it to Nigeria? Surely the world's local bank can do better than shrug it's shoulders at money being sent abroad? Life's complicated enough, for people who never used email professionally, don't even rightly know what a domain name is and equate big name banks with safety and reliability.
Banks have marketed themselves as a safe, trustworthy custodians of your money, not merely facilitators of transactions. When a scam could so easily have been spotted earlier on (by what is surely fairly basic technology?) then I don't think they are upholding their end of the bargain by letting customers get robbed in this way. Even a system with a 50% success rate should have spotted one ridiculous transaction! If Google can know that I am in the market for a bicycle inner tube and bombard me with adverts for related products, surely a bank should be able to see that an old lady in Northumberland didn't just choose to send her life savings to some drug addict in Cardiff as a spontaneous act of generosity?
The Ombudsman were eventually helpful and after about 12 months she was reimbursed in full. This apparently comes from a pool fund all the major banks contribute to.
I think it really does need a more system wide approach with money traceable, new accounts more closely monitored and restricted and unusual transactions flagged up for investigation. Yes some scammers will always get round everything but as far as I can see this style of fraud has boomed in recent years, and it is the banks who can do more to stop it, and I believe should.
I think at one time I would have been on the side of those saying that people should do their own due diligence and suffer their own gullibility. Obviously there has to be a point at which individuals are responsible, but it is not clear exactly how much an unsophisticated retail investor can be expected to do.
In our case, the lady in her 70s had received phone calls, emails and letters apparently from a well known bank, using real employees names and even a domain name that was plausible, as ninja eli outlined above. They were offering bonds in well known companies with a high but not ludicrously so yield. I think it was about 7%, from memory.
The bank had then allowed two highly unusual transactions for tens of thousands of pounds to brand new accounts without a murmur. Just the same click through warnings she would get if she sent £20 to her granddaughter for her birthday. Another major high street bank had opened the accounts the money was sent to and had apparently let the money then be sent abroad (and beyond trace) without raising an alarm.
I just don't think that's good enough.
Banks make a big play of being by your side and fluent in finance, surely they can spot when an old lady who probably hasn't had a transaction over £1,000 in 5 years, suddenly sends half her life savings to a brand new account at the other end of the country, who then immediately send it to Nigeria? Surely the world's local bank can do better than shrug it's shoulders at money being sent abroad? Life's complicated enough, for people who never used email professionally, don't even rightly know what a domain name is and equate big name banks with safety and reliability.
Banks have marketed themselves as a safe, trustworthy custodians of your money, not merely facilitators of transactions. When a scam could so easily have been spotted earlier on (by what is surely fairly basic technology?) then I don't think they are upholding their end of the bargain by letting customers get robbed in this way. Even a system with a 50% success rate should have spotted one ridiculous transaction! If Google can know that I am in the market for a bicycle inner tube and bombard me with adverts for related products, surely a bank should be able to see that an old lady in Northumberland didn't just choose to send her life savings to some drug addict in Cardiff as a spontaneous act of generosity?
The Ombudsman were eventually helpful and after about 12 months she was reimbursed in full. This apparently comes from a pool fund all the major banks contribute to.
I think it really does need a more system wide approach with money traceable, new accounts more closely monitored and restricted and unusual transactions flagged up for investigation. Yes some scammers will always get round everything but as far as I can see this style of fraud has boomed in recent years, and it is the banks who can do more to stop it, and I believe should.
Thanks JCF - I agree, and your analogies did make me chuckle.
Paul has updated his blog - similalr to the FT article with a bit more detail
http://paullewismoney.blogspot.com/2021/04/banks-m...
Feels like the tide is turning slowly in that the sophistication of the crime is starting to be acknowledged more, rather than the victim being completely to blame. It's understanding that the victim's first error was to engage and poke their head above the parapet. There after it's a sustained, and organised attack by a predator.
Paul has updated his blog - similalr to the FT article with a bit more detail
http://paullewismoney.blogspot.com/2021/04/banks-m...
Feels like the tide is turning slowly in that the sophistication of the crime is starting to be acknowledged more, rather than the victim being completely to blame. It's understanding that the victim's first error was to engage and poke their head above the parapet. There after it's a sustained, and organised attack by a predator.
It's taken the bank 62 days from telling us they are declining our claim for a refund to have still not passed the file to the Ombudsman.
They've even ignored Ombudsman requests for the file.
Today I was even more astounded that someone in the Complaints Team quesioned why someone that has been a victim of a scam should be considered as vulnerable?
The bank is pretending to be something that it clearly is not.
They've even ignored Ombudsman requests for the file.
Today I was even more astounded that someone in the Complaints Team quesioned why someone that has been a victim of a scam should be considered as vulnerable?
The bank is pretending to be something that it clearly is not.
They challenge everything. Apparently the 7% bond my relative thought she was buying from a well known utility company was "too good to be true" in some way that sh3 should have spotted. I can understand that sending £5,000 to Nigeria to unlock a Swiss bank account containing tens of millions probably ought to ring some alarm bells but 7% on a water company?
A quick scan on here shows a range of well known companies offering similar rates.
I think their extremely cynical strategy is to play on the shame and guilt people feel about falling for this. Each such objection will lose a certain percentage of claimants who decide to put it down to experience.
In that case it's hard to say she wasn't vulnerable since she actually fell for it. However I think it is still worth patiently explaining in a way that is appropriate to your case exactly why she was potentially vulnerable so perhaps they can better target their resources to similar customers.
A quick scan on here shows a range of well known companies offering similar rates.
I think their extremely cynical strategy is to play on the shame and guilt people feel about falling for this. Each such objection will lose a certain percentage of claimants who decide to put it down to experience.
In that case it's hard to say she wasn't vulnerable since she actually fell for it. However I think it is still worth patiently explaining in a way that is appropriate to your case exactly why she was potentially vulnerable so perhaps they can better target their resources to similar customers.
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