Is this a scam?

[Alex Z]

The money they sent you, and the money you returned are two separate transactions.
It’s possible for their original payment to be clawed back, leaving you out of pocket for the “refund” which is all the scam they need without messing around with an actual car.

[rotaryjam]

Alex Z said:

The money they sent you, and the money you returned are two separate transactions.
It’s possible for their original payment to be clawed back, leaving you out of pocket for the “refund” which is all the scam they need without messing around with an actual car.

My bank has assured me they cant do that and said it wasnt a scam they had heard of? Natualy I'm concerned but my bank didnt seem to be.

[carreauchompeur]

Don’t send any more money back… you could be sending it to another account and will be out of pocket.

[rotaryjam]

carreauchompeur said:

Don’t send any more money back… you could be sending it to another account and will be out of pocket.

My bank has advised me to do it and said I can get in to trouble if not. Besides I dont want £5000 of their money that I have no right to.

What alternative do I have other than returning the money?

[Funk]

To anyone wondering how people get scammed out of large amounts of money...this is exactly how.

OP - stop returning money, you're probably being scammed and there's a huge chance you're about to find the original transactions get clawed back and you'll be out of pocket to the tune of £7k+.

Don't take the word of the call centre person at the bank, you need to speak to the fraud team who will be more familiar with this sort of thing.

For goodness sake, just stop refunding money all over the place and speak to the fraud team at your bank asap.

[rotaryjam]

Funk said:

To anyone wondering how people get scammed out of large amounts of money...this is exactly how.

OP - stop returning money, you're probably being scammed and there's a huge chance you're about to find the original transactions get clawed back and you'll be out of pocket to the tune of £7k+.

Don't take the word of the call centre person at the bank, you need to speak to the fraud team who will be more familiar with this sort of thing.

For goodness sake, just stop refunding money all over the place and speak to the fraud team at your bank asap.

Its the fraud team who I spoke to, what are the alternatives options?

[Austin_Metro]

Maybe get some email correspondence going with the fraud team. For a hard record of their instructions.

I’m a little surprised they are saying return it.

To what account?

Do I understand you to be saying the 2 accounts are the same?

[DT1975]

My missus worked in bank fraud. Her first thought was they're laundering money through you. Don't send anything else to anyone, the first point of contact on a weekend may not be the best person to sort out anything half complicated and they really shouldn't be encouraging you to make payments back to what may well be a dodgy bank account .The fact that three unexpected payments have appeared in your account sets alarm bells ringing big time, albeit its on the premise of a car purchase when you only asked for a small deposit. Hold fire, don't send any more payments and contact the bank tomorrow when the rest of the team including supervisors will be in. You certainly won't get in trouble so deal with it in your own time.

[rotaryjam]

Thanks for the comments.

I spoke to the bank, they have confirmed its the same account I'm paying in back that is crediting me so not 2 separate accounts as I suspected.

I spoke again to the fraud team to get my account unlocked and they said it sounds very suspect but again cant think of how they could be scamming me.

They also confirmed the last payment of £5,000 was sent to me today after I told them the deal was off and not yesterday as they claimed, very suspicious! Whats more, they haven't chased me for the money after I told them I was speaking to the bank and that the money will be returned in due course.

The bank have now raised an investigation and held back the return payment I was trying to make.

So whatever the scammer was trying to do I hope I'm covered now.

Edited by rotaryjam on Sunday 6th March 19:43

[Driver101]

It's all a bit strange.

Has the person provided any I.D?

[jon-yprpe]

I work for a large UK bank. I’m not on the fraud side, but not unfamiliar. You should follow the advice of the fraud team, esp in returning the money. This is important if there is any attempt to lauder money through your account. The fraud team will log your calls, but do note when you called and who you spoke to on the team….just an insurance policy.

But from reading the thread….this is all defo dodgy. Who puts £2.5k into a account to test the system vs say £10??

[rotaryjam]

Driver101 said:

It's all a bit strange.

Has the person provided any I.D?

None. I was going to ask them after I got suspicious but decided to just cancel the deal

[GT9]

garyhun said:

fk me OP - just move on and leave this joker behind.

This is so obviously a SCAM that I’m shocked you’re even asking us what you should do.

How do you just move on when they keep sending you money?

I bet the OP is dreading looking at his balance, in case it's gone up again.

Admittedly I'm struggling to see the scam if both the sending and receiving accounts of the scammer are the same.

[wibble cb]

I work for a large financial institution, we never return funds manually, we have the option to issue debit authority, which means our bank can take the funds back and return it to the remitting bank, that way we don't have any doubts about it being the 'same' money, or laundering, etc.

You mentioned the fraud dept, did you call them from another line on a known ok bank number, as part of the scam is also to be the fraud dept on the other end, and then of course advise you to pay funds away.....

I would be asking your (actual) bank to do the leg work, as above, and issue debit authority,

[aaron_2000]

rotaryjam said:

My bank has assured me they cant do that and said it wasnt a scam they had heard of? Natualy I'm concerned but my bank didnt seem to be.

I'd get that in writing via email from them if you can, at least then you have something you can point to and say "This is the guarantee your fraud team gave me"

[ro250]

Have you been back in touch with the buyer to ask what he's doing?

[Terminator X]

rotaryjam said:

carreauchompeur said:

Don’t send any more money back… you could be sending it to another account and will be out of pocket.

My bank has advised me to do it and said I can get in to trouble if not. Besides I dont want £5000 of their money that I have no right to.

What alternative do I have other than returning the money?

Keep it until such time as it all becomes apparent as to what is going on? Just move it in to your savings account and wait it out.

TX.

[markymark34]

Any update on this op?

[rotaryjam]

So nearly a week later and no real update.

My bank raised an investigation last Sunday and since then I've chased them every other day and no progress...

The buyer has asked a couple of times if there has been an update but that's it, they seem remarkably calm about it.

So currently I'm stuck, I can't return the money to them and my bank doesn't appear to be doing much to further their investigation.

Any advice?

[wibble cb]

rotaryjam said:

So nearly a week later and no real update.

My bank raised an investigation last Sunday and since then I've chased them every other day and no progress...

The buyer has asked a couple of times if there has been an update but that's it, they seem remarkably calm about it.

So currently I'm stuck, I can't return the money to them and my bank doesn't appear to be doing much to further their investigation.

Any advice?

If you dob't want the funds. tell them to kick it back as I described, via debit authority, not by you making a payment., and document everything.