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They fell for the 'Mum, I smashed my phone' scam text thinking it was from my sister. Soon followed by loads of pleading messages for money a 'she was in trouble with some money lenders'. Couple of grand taken in total, sent to 3 different accounts.
They feel very foolish and embarrassed and I can see it's hit them hard.
I can see how it's happened...
a) they always communicate by text as they can't hear well on the phone as they're both in their 80's
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
c) my sister does ask for money from time to time, but usual sub £100 at a time
We've been onto bank fraud team yesterday, but we're not holding out much hope of getting money back as they approved the payments.
We've drummed it into them over and over to check with us if unsure, but the messages they received frightened them thinking my sister was going to come to harm and there was great urgency to get the payments done.
Bugger. Sorry to hear that 🙁
I've been getting quite a few of these texts in the last couple of weeks.
That's awful.
Please bear in mind that these ****ers may come back for a second or third go, or sell on their details for other scammers to have a pop, so make sure everything is locked down. It might be the right moment to talk to them about setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney which might offer a little more protection in future.
Based on the OP, I'd be asking the sister to pay TBH
What a shame, that is really rough for them.
Scammers are good at wat they do, and getting batter all of the time.
Scammers are good at wat they do, and getting batter all of the time.
Definitely a bit fishy.
Please bear in mind that these **** may come back for a second or third go, or sell on their details for other scammers to have a pop, so make sure everything is locked down. It might be the right moment to talk to them about setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney which might offer a little more protection in future.
All in-hand! 👍
We were going to do LPA's last year but I moved house and couldn't deal with it at the time. But it's a priority now.
And between my parents, sister and me we've agreed that should anyone need money we're to confirm with each other before doing a thing.
Scammers are good at wat they do, and getting batter all of the time.
The texts are very convincing.
I didn't think anything was wrong at first when they said my sister had asked for money (they didn't tell me the amounts) and I was having a right rant about my sister being a lazy arse and at 50 she should sort her bleedin' life out.
It's only when my parents said 'ooh, your sister has got a new phone number that you should have' and showed me 'smashed phone' text that it fell into place.
Hang in there with the bank.
My mum fell for the same scam and even continued with it when the bank phoned to check.
Once she finally told me what had happened she got back onto the bank and explained and they refunded her in full.
I was the recipient of one of these texts, but that was "from" a neighbour and, though convincing, was just completely out of character.so that flagged it for me. It's not difficult to see how folk can be taken in. I guess I'm also of an age where I'd expect a plea for money to be made in a voice call, not a text message.
Reading this scares me...I too have a lazy arse brother who has probably only worked 5 years total..now in his 50's , anyhoo he is always getting money out of my dad who is nearly 80, my dad is pretty clued up but in time he will get scammed , if anything my brother will probably be behind it
We’ve been onto bank fraud team yesterday, but we’re not holding out much hope of getting money back as they approved the payments
If the transfers were to UK bank accounts, they should get the money back as there is a voluntary agreement between UK banks
Was it just a coincidence that you're sister often asks for cash (by text)?
Feels a bit fishy to me, have you actually spoken with your sister?
I was the recipient of one of these texts, but that was “from” a neighbour and, though convincing, was just completely out of character.so that flagged it for me. It’s not difficult to see how folk can be taken in.
A few years ago I, and a load of other race volunteers, Commissaires etc, got an email from a well known race organiser.
He was trapped in Cuba, lost passport, hotel wouldn't help etc etc. Needed money.
Yeah right. Delete. Several people contacted him to say his email has been hacked.
Meanwhile, one guy had transferred £700 right there and then. 😳
My Mum is under strict instructions never to respond to messages like that and to always cross reference with me or my sister if she gets a text/WhatsApp purporting to be from one of us. We've told her countless times that we'll never ask for money by text. Hopefully, that's been drummed into her.
Good luck getting a refund.
Was it just a coincidence that you’re sister often asks for cash (by text)?
I've received the "hey Mum..." text. I'm male, with no kids and even if I did they wouldn't be old enough to be financially independent.
Costs them nothing to cast the net wide and see who bites.
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
Thats a pain in the hoop even without the obvious issue in the OP. Get her to stop doing that?
That sucks.
I have had to have a word with my dad (79) the last month as he seems to be getting very confused when he gets a scam text or email. So far he has been good with it, but he has just got rid of a phone number due to volume of scam texts and calls, I suspect after he responded to one just to tell them they had wrong number and signed it with his name....(and he had not realised that confirmed his number and name to a scammer...). He has also just had a confusion over his energy supply costs, which saw him concerned his bill would rise from £59 a month to £430+ a month - and he has always been superb at these calculations / getting best deal before.
Scammers are getting cleverer and when combined with an ageing parent, it is a worry..
Feels a bit fishy to me, have you actually spoken with your sister?
I've spoken to my sister.
She's not behind this. She's not a bad person, runs a good household, has two nice kids - she's always been shit with money though. You'd not trust her to invest your life's savings! 🙂
My mum got done a few years ago when the "bank fraud team" called.
Cleared out her current account, which was embarrassing for her, but not the end of the world (she only has a few hundred quid in there at most, and has a good buffer of savings and a decent pension).
She then texted my brother back a few months later, calling him scamming scum and told him to get a proper ****ing job when he asked to borrow a couple of grand for 10 days or so while he sold some shares to cover some work on the house.
As above... keep going with the banks.
My mum fell for exactly the same "Mum, ive broken my phone" scam... she only realised when I spoke to her the next day and didn't thank her for the money!!
The bank refunded her in full. I think she also reported it to the police.
However as a side effect, she now has trouble transferring money for real (for nephews / nieces birthdays) I think she must be on some sort of "at risk of scam" register at the bank, but I'd rather that, than have her get caught out again.
Scammers are getting cleverer
Indeed.
And just to add a bit from the banks' point of view - these types of payments are incredibly hard to detect and flag as suspicious. Payments fraud used to be people pretending to be you making a payment out of your account (so stolen or phished login details, hacked passwords etc). The banks got good at spotting these, as they could use things like IP address history, location etc to judge whether it was actually you logged in, or someone pretending to be you. With the introduction of Multi Factor Authentication it became much harder still for the scammers, as pretending to be you on more than one device at once is particularly tricky.
So, the scammers moved on to getting you make the payment - it's called a Fraudulent Push Payment. If you make the payment, how is the bank to know whether you're doing it willingly, or under the influence of a scam? You'll probably have noticed that there are now quite a lot of "are you sure you want to make this payment, are you sure it's not a scam" type messages now within a payment request, this is an attempt to get people to think a bit more before hitting "Make Payment"
I think she must be on some sort of “at risk of scam” register at the bank, but I’d rather that, than have her get caught out again.
Yes, my mum has the same thing now. She can only do certain sorts of transfers, and they ask all sorts of extra questions before allowing the transfer. Like "Have you confirmed that you recognise the receiving account number", "Have you confirmed the identity of the recipient" and so on.
She's had a few genuine transfers refused. Which is not a problem compared to the alternative.
Hell, i probably get more transfers refused than her, because half the banks/payment processors in the UK don't seen to recognise ÖÄÅ of which i have 4 in my address, and most Swedish banks don't trust any UK banks because their security is shocking...
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
Why?
There may be plenty of social reasons for changing your number ("my ex keeps harassing me" and so forth) but no technical ones. Being told you need a new number used to be a popular sales tactic because they got more commission for a 'new' connection than for porting an existing one.
Why?
No idea - you'd need to ask my sister that! 🙂
It's not on a monthly basis, usually every couple of years.
Based on the OP, I’d be asking the sister to pay TBH
Not sure how you came to that conclusion. She had nothing to do with the scam.
Why?
There may be plenty of social reasons for changing your number (“my ex keeps harassing me” and so forth) but no technical ones. Being told you need a new number used to be a popular sales tactic because they got more commission for a ‘new’ connection than for porting an existing one.
Knowledge. I know people who always change their number when they change provider. When pointed out that it is dead easy to move numbers across they 'can't be bothered with the hassle'. I know...
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
bit odd. Ive had the same number for the past 25 years, or even more.
edit: i SUPPOSE it does take a few hours to port a number across, and you use the new sim number till thats done.
Knowledge. I know people who always change their number when they change provider. When pointed out that it is dead easy to move numbers across they ‘can’t be bothered with the hassle’. I know…
Well, quite.
You text PAC to 65075. That's literally it. If they have the wherewithal to change provider, they can port their number.
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
Thats a pain in the hoop even without the obvious issue in the OP. Get her to stop doing that?
there are plenty of good reasons why someone might be in a position where they have to do that. Few is them too nice to contemplate. Let’s not be so quick to blame victims for the actions of the perpetrators. It was nothing other than luck that the the scammers MO was successful on this particular occasion.It’s not anyone else’s fault.
These scams are a multibillion dollar industry. We’re idiots if we allow ourselves to think it’s only idiots that fall for these things
Anyway - can we stop the character analysis of my sister.
She does some odd things at times, she's not perfect - but who amongst us is.
Anyway – can we stop the character analysis of my sister.
She does some odd things at times, she’s not perfect – but who amongst us is.
Indeed, I know plenty of folk who don't do things that appear obvious to the rest of us. It's not a character flaw, it's just who they are.
It's just one of those things that give the scams an air of credibility, are folk going to pick on the fact your folks had kids next?
As others have said, the bank may still refund you (even if they aren't obliged to if your mother verified any anti-fraud checks she was presented with).
These scams are a multibillion dollar industry. We’re idiots if we allow ourselves to think it’s only idiots that fall for these things
100%.
Time was, I used to think that way. But scams are getting ever more sophisticated and it's increasingly difficult to know what's legitimate.
A few years ago I, and a load of other race volunteers, Commissaires etc, got an email from a well known race organiser.
He was trapped in Cuba, lost passport, hotel wouldn’t help etc etc. Needed money.
Think i saw when someone posted about that on FB when it happened.
Unfortunately this is a common scam going round currently. I warned my mum and still got a facebook message to ask me why I was texting asking for money, thankfully we communicate by facebook messenger rather than texting otherwise I think she may have fallen for it. Fingers crossed that the bank gives them their money back, people really are scumbags.
But scams are getting ever more sophisticated and it’s increasingly difficult to know what’s legitimate.
And it's making life very difficult for genuine bank calls and sometimes even calls from councils, businesses and so on.
We were always scared that my grandfather would be taken in by someone knocking on the door pretending to find a problem with the gutters or something and doing him out of thousands for it. Scams now are considerably more high tech.
She then texted my brother back a few months later, calling him scamming scum and told him to get a proper ****ing job when he asked to borrow a couple of grand for 10 days or so while he sold some shares to cover some work on the house.
This is gold. 🤣
My slightly younger than yours parents were all of a bother a few weeks back with the same scam - my folks are switched on but still nearly fell for it despite my brother living in Australia, the text numbers coming from a +44 UK number and "really M&D - why would financially really solvent brother need to borrow for a replacement phone?"
I got caught out by that scam a few months back. Made a payment by credit card and another by bank transfer. When I realised rang my bank (Nationwide) and they were able to reverse the payments back into my accounts. Phew.
*Hangs head in shame*
They are VERY good at it. We had one at work where they had got into someone senior's email. They found an email for an invoice a year ago that was about due and containted two payments. They updated the date, left the bank details of the first the same as the original and changed the details on the second to theirs. They then sent an email to our finance team saying it needed to be paid urgently. Fortunately we spotted it as just requesting it be paid urgently isn't enough but it was super slickly done. It would be easy to get caught out if you had an overbearing CEO and a finance team that are easily pressurised.
You’ll probably have noticed that there are now quite a lot of “are you sure you want to make this payment, are you sure it’s not a scam” type messages now within a payment request, this is an attempt to get people to think a bit more before hitting “Make Payment”
My Barclays App used to show these all the time, even with payments to people I'd been paying the same amount each month for years. Totally counter productive as it just conditions people to ignore them...
I've lost count of the number of times my mother-in-law rings in a panic because she's had a text/email claiming she owes someone money or that she'll be locked out of her bank account or something like that. We've told her in no uncertain terms not to respond to anything that she hasn't instigated herself and to ignore it but she still gets worried about it. At least she rings us first before doing anything.
Also whilst they're not scams, my parents are suckers for cold-calling salesmen. They've had a roof treatment they didn't need, legal services for power of attorney and putting the house in trust for when they die which were totally unnecessary, and now they've just forked out 10k on solar panels on the false promise that they will save thousands on their energy bills. I"ve concluded they just like giving their money away (not me of course 🙂 ).
One of my screwfix customers was being scammed. Out the blue visa ring him and off he goes into the patter.
Hapless customer does zero to confirm he is talking to Visa, no question like ' whats my credit limit' or 'list the 3 previous s transactions'
Conman yells him £900 has been spent in California, is it him?
I could have sworn its dollars, and amazingly it was exactly 900 quid.
So hes off out the door saying ' sorry. Gotta deal with this'
Before i could even say, its a scam.
When I realised rang my bank (Nationwide) and they were able to reverse the payments back into my accounts. Phew.
I think you'll find that what they actually did was probably not "reverse the payment", i.e. got it back from wherever you'd sent it to, they in fact just refunded you the money and took the loss themselves (and the losses that the banks take on the chin from fraudulent payments are eeeeenormous)
Which brings, for me, an interesting ethical question - should banks be compelled to give people their money back when those people have given it away of their own volition (even if that may have been a result of a scam). If someone had ben scammed into posting some money to a scammer, would they expect a refund from Royal Mail?
Don't they have a minimum duty of care these days to make sure people don't actually make the payments to fraudsters, i.e. flagging involved account numbers and dodgy/unusual activity?
Probably easier/cheaper to take the hit than update automated systems.
should banks be compelled to give people their money back when those people have given it away of their own volition
It's a good question but I think it's the other side of the coin of having these fast electronic payments that are probably cheaper for them. Also the instant payment stuff that is good for retailers (and banks) as it 'lowers the friction of payment', ie.makes it easier for you to buy stuff you don't need before you change their mind. I'm guessing they put up with it as it makes us feel more comfortable with online and electronic banking
It's the inconsistency of payments being blocked that slightly baffles me.
Even after authorising, sending small amount first to make sure it's gone to the right place, I've still had payments blocked and had to phone the bank to release.
Which brings, for me, an interesting ethical question – should banks be compelled to give people their money back when those people have given it away of their own volition (even if that may have been a result of a scam).
Yes, as the banks have made it too easy to transfer money to total strangers e.g. not checking the name of the recipient matches on the account before allowing it...
The victims haven't given it to fraudsters of their own volition, they been taken advantage of using the lax money transfer processes the banks have implemented.
Even after authorising, sending small amount first to make sure it’s gone to the right place, I’ve still had payments blocked and had to phone the bank to release.
Same here, but was told that reason was quite usual way for scammers to act, taking a small payment first then increase ££
It’s the inconsistency of payments being blocked that slightly baffles me.
Even after authorising, sending small amount first to make sure it’s gone to the right place, I’ve still had payments blocked and had to phone the bank to release.
Look at it the other way - it's not uncommon for a scammer to send a small amount first to check it's going to work, and then go for the main amount.
The banks use a lot of expensive software and experienced staff to try and judge if the payments being requested might be fraudulent. A lot of this is done by looking at past account behaviour, like have you paid the payee in the past (not just in the past couple of minutes), is it a larger amount than you normally pay, is it at a time/day that you normally make payments etc etc. There are literally thousands of rules, using incredibly clever kit and people, and it costs them millions, yet they still get told they're not doing enough.
/industry rant over
We’re idiots if we allow ourselves to think it’s only idiots that fall for these things
+1
As the OP shows, send out enough messages and eventually you'll find the parents of someone who regularly changes their number, requests money, is waiting for some online shopping, is traveling in Mexico, etc. At which point it probably barely raises an eyebrow.
e.g. not checking the name of the recipient matches on the account before allowing it…
This is done now, and has been for the past few years. it's called Confirmation of Payee and it's industry wide. If you set up a payment to an account and the names don't match, you will be asked "are you sure, the names don't match". You can then double check and correct the details or cancel the payment, or, if you want, carry on. If you do the latter it's, reasonably IMO, on you.
I still get a chuckle out of Halifax letting me buy a flight to scotland, get the train to the airport, hire a car in Glasgow without issue.
But try to buy dinner at a restaurant in Scotland? outside of my normal activity, card declined.
While yes, admittedly it is not something I do regularly, the rest of the activity might give some indication of my location and intentions.
I still get a chuckle out of Halifax letting me buy a flight to scotland, get the train to the airport, hire a car in Glasgow without issue.
But try to buy dinner at a restaurant in Scotland? outside of my normal activity, card declined.While yes, admittedly it is not something I do regularly, the rest of the activity might give some indication of my location and intentions.
Well, they couldn't have known where your flight was going, or your train, or where your hire car was booked for, or, potentially, that you'd done anything like that at all if you'd bought that stuff through any third parties.
And it might have been the restaurant that was flagged as dodgy.
This is done now, and has been for the past few years. it’s called Confirmation of Payee and it’s industry wide.
My understanding was it was a voluntary code and they took ages to implement it - not even sure if all banks actually have....
I like to think I'm pretty vigilant when it comes to scammers. I've worked in banking for 15+ years so I've pretty much seen it all. You'd be amazed at the volumes of "successful" scams. The banks generally take the hit and refund the customer unless the customer has clearly been grossly negligent. 99% of the time the customer will get the money back as demonstrating gross negligence to a standard that satisfies the regulators is almost impossible, it's just not worth the hassle.
One had me scratching my head the other day though. The Mrs advertised something on FB marketplace and was quickly contacted by someone asking if it was available etc. They exchanged a few messages and the the interested party started with the "I'm away with worth so I'll send an Agent to collect it and pay cash". They went on to say "the cash will be in a black envelope and handed to you by my agent who will ask that you count the cash and confirm that you are happy blah blah blah". She stopped responding at that point and then received several messages pushing for "urgent resolution to ensure you get your cash". It was clearly a scam - bad spelling etc. But the fact they essentially pushing for cash on collection? How would that one pan out?
My understanding was it was a voluntary code and they took ages to implement it – not even sure if all banks actually have….
The largest banking groups* were given no choice and had to have it done by June 2020, smaller ones have signed up voluntarily
*Bank of Scotland plc, Barclays Bank UK plc, Barclays Bank plc, HSBC Bank plc, HSBC UK Bank plc, Lloyds Bank plc, National Westminster Bank plc, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Santander UK plc and Ulster Bank Limited
But the fact they essentially pushing for cash on collection? How would that one pan out?
Counterfeit notes?
Counterfeit notes?
Seems a bit of a stretch for a 2nd hand relatively cheap buggy! Perhaps the conversation would have evolved into something further involving a bank transfer.
Maybe something like asking if they can pay by bank transfer instead, claiming to have accidently sent too much money, providing a screenshot of a fake payment confirmation and then asking if she could arrange to transfer the difference back immediately.
No , not cash on collection. As soon as you agree they will send you a link to pay for insurance for the collection/delivery. It won’t be a huge sum, but it’s accumulative.
These are often hacked FB accounts and, surprisingly, rarely originate in the UK.
Let’s not be so quick to blame victims for the actions of the perpetrators.
@the_muffin_man
I feel like I started off those comments about your sister with the phone number changing. It certainly wasn't my intention to imply anything about her or even to suggest it was in anyway her fault. It was merely a suggestion that might help make things more reassuring for your parents going forward. Even just a simple code like including her middle name if asking for money.
Look at it the other way – it’s not uncommon for a scammer to send a small amount first to check it’s going to work, and then go for the main amount.
In the pre chip & pin, pre contactless days, someone broke into the staff room at work and nicked some wallets.
They used my Barclaycard in a local supermarket almost immediately, small transaction. Then went back and bought a load more stuff, obviously relying on faking the signature and the checkout staff not looking closely enough.
Barclaycard picked up on this very quickly and blocked the attempted third (much bigger) transaction.
Phoned me at work (we were still oblivious to the theft from our staff room) and it was only then I found out about the theft, they cancelled the card immediately and reimbursed the (relatively small) amount that has been spent. They picked it up because it was totally outside my normal spending patterns.
We had a few attempts to use stolen cards in the shop as well, they'd always pick on junior (often female) members of staff and rely on their confidence/bolshiness in talking their way around it if they got pulled up on the signatures not matching.
"Oh I broke my writing hand, had to sign it left handed" was a common one...
IANABE
Is there not someway that banks can 'flag' dodgy receiving accounts? Surely some kind of system, like on social media, of banks staff going 'this account is dodgy' to be investigated more? Any payment to that account is temporarily blocked until checks are made...?
My bil had his card cloned at a petrol station.
They used the card to buy 2 x airline tickets to the US.
Would the police wait at Heathrow and arrest the 2 people sitting in aisle 33.... Nope
IANABE
Is there not someway that banks can ‘flag’ dodgy receiving accounts? Surely some kind of system, like on social media, of banks staff going ‘this account is dodgy’ to be investigated more? Any payment to that account is temporarily blocked until checks are made…?
IAABE and very sophisticated systems are in place for fraud detection and the vast majority of fraud is detected with funds being returned. The issue is the industrial scale and trying to balance friction vs convenience in the payment space can make it seem less safe.
In the case above given it clearly isn’t one of gross negligent and the bank will refund. Your parents can contact the fraud team as well to get some reassurance as fraud can be a traumatic experience.
One finally thought, most people are convinced they’ll never fall victim right up to the moment they do so your parents shouldn’t feel too bad about this. It can happen to anyone.
I've got an odd one at the moment.
Cheap, but not suspiciously cheap, Wahoo Kickr on Facebook marketplace. It's not local, but is just up the road from somewhere I'll be working at the weekend, advert does say he'll post.
He's immediately straight into "too busy, need it gone, what's your full address?" All I'd asked was was it still for sale and how much would the postage be.
Told him I'll leave it for now and possibly pick it up in person in a few days instead.
"It might be gone by then"
Maybe he's either really affluent and doesn't care about selling it cheap and sucking up the postage (or was going to pass it through the work account), or maybe he really needs the money. And a Kickr would be a niche thing to use as bait in a scam, but then the internet was awash with Bowflex dumbbells' as a scam the last few years. Profile has several red flags though, 2000+ friends, mostly looking 20 years younger in low cut tops and the profile name doesn't match the facebook.com/joe.bloggs but then plenty of paranoid people probably setup a 2nd account just for buying/selling/perving.
IANABE
Is there not someway that banks can ‘flag’ dodgy receiving accounts? Surely some kind of system, like on social media, of banks staff going ‘this account is dodgy’ to be investigated more? Any payment to that account is temporarily blocked until checks are made…?
IAABSE 😉
If a receiving account is dodgy enough to, well, look dodgy to someone at the bank it's held with, or a bank that's had fraudulent funds sent to it, it'll very probably be blocked from receiving funds anyway.
However, for a bank it's held with, how would you know or detect that one of your accountsis dodgy? Because it receives money? Because it receives lots of payments? Because it receives big payments? All of these things are perfectly 'normal' bank account behaviour.
This is done now, and has been for the past few years. it’s called Confirmation of Payee and it’s industry wide. If you set up a payment to an account and the names don’t match, you will be asked “are you sure, the names don’t match”. You can then double check and correct the details or cancel the payment, or, if you want, carry on. If you do the latter it’s, reasonably IMO, on you.
And bizarrely when i was paying off my mortgage, they can't even be bothered to set the correct name on their own accounts 🙁 The name they tell you to use fails this check!
Just got home and my parents have just messaged to say the bank have refunded half of the loss (money is already back in their account).
Full refund refused as my dad made x3 payments to three separate accounts. So bank have classed as major error on my fathers behalf.
My parents don't want to take it further, and they feel very lucky to get half of it back.
I'm interested to know what those talking about LPAs think they achieve beyond extending the right to operate the account to the attorney?
They don't stop the person who the power concerns also operating individually, and don't introduce a '2 signature' authorisation process.
Is it that the banks themselves can add security checks if an LPA is in place?
I don't think LPA would have helped in this case, but we haven't looked into it closely yet. It's just wise for us to get it in place before they fully lose their marbles!
Sorry to hear about your parents. Scammers are getting v good at what they do. I nearly fell for it when I advertised on marketplace, I get scam messages almost daily now so have wised up.
They must feel awful, at least they told you, apparently most are too ashamed.
Which brings, for me, an interesting ethical question – should banks be compelled to give people their money back when those people have given it away of their own volition (even if that may have been a result of a scam).
See @mert first comment about bank security in UK being a bit rubbish as to why they refund. Getting the banks to update their IT estate would be very costly and it's cheaper to refund than spend the money on 'proper' security. Before the banking types get onto me, can you honestly say that your employer does not have 80's to 00's iron running some off the internal processes with modern stuff tacked on? (See also TSB locking their customers out of their accounts for a weekend due to a piss-poor shift of IT).
how would you know or detect that one of your accountsis dodgy? Because it receives money? Because it receives lots of payments? Because it receives big payments? All of these things are perfectly ‘normal’ bank account behaviour.
(no axe to grind here)
I assume that, once "my" bank receives a fraud report from me it reports the receiving account to some sort of alert system so that it can be locked down ?
Presumably then, these accounts are emptied frequently in case of being rumbled, so how about:
new a/c, multiple receipts, very frequent withdrawals to somewhere close to empty. I have no idea but how many genuine accounts would look like that ?
Or better still, delay between times an account can be drained ?
I've had loads of phishing emails of late, c.10 a day all the same style after I accidentally clicked on the picture link in the email. It took about 2 months of reporting the emails as phishing.
I've had texts from my bank stating the fraud team would call only for them to call from a mobile number. Admittedly their fraud systems worked but my suspicions and reluctance to answer or engage with a random number meant my account was frozen, until I called from their app.
Presumably then, these accounts are emptied frequently in case of being rumbled, so how about:
new a/c, multiple receipts, very frequent withdrawals to somewhere close to empty. I have no idea but how many genuine accounts would look like that ?
The other half of the scam is persuadig poor hard up folk to take an incoming payment as a favour, they can keep 10% or whatver and just transfer the reaminder to another account.
The chances are that the accounts that the money goes to are both real acounts, and nothing to do with the scammer.
I assume that, once “my” bank receives a fraud report from me it reports the receiving account to some alert system
They'll report it to the bank holding that potentially dodgy account, who will probably lock it down so it can't receive or make any payments.
I have no idea but how many genuine accounts would look like that ?
Loads of them, business accounts for example, sole trader accounts, even normal
personal current accounts.
Or better still, delay between times an account can be drained ?
So you'd be happy if your bank said to you "I know you've had some money paid into your account, but you can't take it out for three days in case it's dodgy"?
See @mert first comment about bank security in UK being a bit rubbish as to why they refund. Getting the banks to update their IT estate would be very costly and it’s cheaper to refund than spend the money on ‘proper’ security. Before the banking types get onto me, can you honestly say that your employer does not have 80’s to 00’s iron running some off the internal processes with modern stuff tacked on?
I think your mixing up different issues there to be honest.
Do banks have legacy IT systems? Absolutely they do, although they are being replaced as they cost a fortune to maintain. However, that has little to do with how 'secure' your account is from fraud. In fact, some of the biggest fraud issues are with the new 'challenger' banks who, whilst they have brand spanking IT kit, do not have the same level of anti-fraud business process and control as the 'old' banks, much of it learned through bitter experience.
my suspicions and reluctance to answer or engage with a random number meant my account was frozen
This does worry me. I still get calls where the caller wants to "go through security". If they phone me, I expect them to prove who they are, and I'm not giving my DoB etc until they do, but they don't like it. If I'm not expecting the call I tell them I'll call back to the number I have on their documentation.
I don’t think LPA would have helped in this case, but we haven’t looked into it closely yet. It’s just wise for us to get it in place before they fully lose their marbles!
LPA has nothing to do with fraud as such, it's simply a legal system for the account owner to delegate responsibility to a friend or relative to look after their affairs if they are no longer able to do so.
If anything, you'd become responsible for any fraud committed on that account if (eg) your parents are no longer of sound mind to use it and all financial decisions are delegated to you.
It's not just the genuine fraud either - when my Mum finally got LPA over her Dad's accounts, she found about 4 direct debits set up to various boiler insurance schemes - it wasn't a "scam" as such but the (genuine) utilities companies had taken him for a ride, offered him all sorts of "well as an old man living on your own, you probably need boiler cover, wouldn't want the heating to break in the middle of winter now would you...?" type stuff which he'd naively accepted. Oh yes, here's my DD details. She went mental at them and eventually got a few thousand ££ back via the ombudsman.
As soon as you get LPA, go through all the payments with a fine tooth comb, there's no telling what some people have set up. Even "free trial period" things where the trial has expired and automatically moved them onto the £8.99 a month subscription. That's just as much of a scam - half a dozen charity donations, unused subscriptions, worthless "insurance" crap etc can add up to a lot of money going out every month.
A friend's elderly Mum was an absolute nightmare for those "text DONKEY to 12345 to give £2 a month to save these poor creatures..." and had about £70 a month going out to charities... 😳
I’ve had texts from my bank stating the fraud team would call only for them to call from a mobile number. Admittedly their fraud systems worked but my suspicions and reluctance to answer or engage with a random number meant my account was frozen, until I called from their app.
Fraud depts seem to be universally manned with complete idiots who cant follow their own advice 🙁 For some reason they think their random number is trustworthy as compared to someone elses random number!