Parents have been scammed...

Fraud depts seem to be universally manned with complete idiots who cant follow their own advice

I know a number of those people, and what they're generally doing is working hard to stop people being scammed out of their money. But, ya know, stay classy.

I know a number of those people, and what they’re generally doing is working hard to stop people being scammed out of their money. But, ya know, stay classy.

Depends what bank, I had Santander once lock me out my account because I tried to withdraw cash in Glasgow. I could see the point but it's literally 40 minutes up the road. When I phoned up their response was basically 'tough titties' and I was told to wait 12h until the account was unfrozen. Which was really bloody helpful.

I know a number of those people, and what they’re generally doing is working hard to stop people being scammed out of their money. But, ya know, stay classy.

Well then you can tell that to stop being angry assholes when they phone from a random number and start asking details which would be ideal for breaking into your bank account and I quite sensibly refuse to do as per their own guidance 😉

What you need is parents like mine who have no online banking and getting them to move money is a three day process that involves a trip to the actual bank!

@muffinman - personally I wouldn’t broach the LPA discussion right now.  They’ll be feeling bruised right now and possibly doubting themselves.  The LPA conversation is much better had when they are feeling in control and confident.  I’m sure if my parents got scammed and then soon after I was having the LPA conversation they would interpret it as “he thinks we are losing our marbles”.  In fact these sort of scams work quite well on far younger folk than your parents.

Sorry to hear about this OP.

Unfortunately a family member was conned out of a few thousand over a 2-3 year period, unfortunately too late for us to do anything about it. But it was/is gut wrenching that these scum prey on the vunerable like that and probably pass on their details to other scum. Makes my blood boil.

Hope you get it sorted OP.

Full refund refused as my dad made x3 payments to three separate accounts. So bank have classed as major error on my fathers behalf.

Hmmm. Depends on the amounts being sent out to each one, but surely the bank should be looking at odd payments in a short amount of time from a (vulnerable?) customer's account?

Might be worth looking towards the ombudsman (FOS) now. Might be worth looking on their website at case studies or calling them.

My dad fell for that text scam at the weekend, he even queried which daughter, the response was guess, so he did ?

I am still shocked by the clear decline in his mental acuity, esp as mum has dementia and he is looking after her. It has been a big wake up call.

Big thanks to HSBC who blocked it.

I am still shocked by the clear decline in his mental acuity,

I am with my dad, but I still maintain the issue is the cleverness of the scammers. They have worked out what psychologically works to elicit a response - there are whole teams out there planning all this. Even 'switched on' folk are getting caught out.

We had an incident at work where 'the boss' emailed an admin team member and asked them to use my company credit card to purchase some supermarket vouchers for the team as a gif - £1k worth. The admin team member has a daughter who is cyber security in banks expert - and yet still our admin fell for it... The scammers had worked out the company structure, worked out email addresses and then placed an enquiry so that they had our email footer and logo to copy.

Well then you can tell that to stop being angry assholes when they phone from a random number and start asking details which would be ideal for breaking into your bank account and I quite sensibly refuse to do as per their own guidance

Sounds like there was more than one arsehole involved in that conversation if I'm honest.

In a previous job my wife came very close to doing a BACS transfer to "the lawyers" to the tune of around £10k. The thing was, they tended to be very ad-hoc in their billing arrangements and it didn't seem odd until the last moment where she spotted some minor detail that wasn't quite right. She was in accounts payable and whoever was on the other end had them sussed right out.

We had an incident at work where ‘the boss’ emailed an admin team member and asked them to use my company credit card to purchase some supermarket vouchers for the team as a gif – £1k worth.

The place I used to work at would routinely get emails from "the boss" asking for this urgent invoice to be paid.

We had a good IT system and a load of protocols in place (#1 being that the actual boss would *never* email requests like that) and they all got blocked but it was whack-a-mole. You'd block a spammer over here and a fraudster would pop up over there. Constant battle.

The finance team was very close knit and very good as well, that really helped. But I can see how in a bigger organisation with higher pressures, maybe new staff members etc that something like that could easily get through.

My dad fell for that text scam at the weekend, he even queried which daughter, the response was guess, so he did ?

Both my brother and I introduce ourselves as "second favourite son" when we call the parents on their landline. Maybe we should stop doing that.

We old do need to be extremely savvy about the scammers. I would like to think that I am at the top of my game on cyber stuff.
I had trouble with my bank card not being accepted, couldn't get through to said bank, so left a message on the FB site. And then got a reply...
After I had sent some details of my card, but not the important one, I realised what was happening. The site was a complete clone - the only way of telling any difference was the no of likes (which were few) and the quality of English being used.
I complained to FB - but I am not sure if the ever closed the site down.

My MIL got caught last year.
Text message from ‘nhs’
With a link to pay for her covid test.
She’d had a test a couple of days before, so clicked on it.
Very soon, a call from ‘the bank’ telling her that scammers were trying to apply for. 13k loan and she needs to move her funds to secure the account.
The actual bank blocked the payment though.
She’s not stupid, far from it in fact, but she still got caught.
Do not underestimate these people, they’re persistent and have no qualms about screwing anybody over.

So, if you want to add to a list of 'probable' scams to warn your parents about- the mobile phone company ringing up to say you've a tasty discount on the monthly cost of your sim card and they just need you to tell them the four/six digit number they are just about to send to you. (That code obviously being the validation code to get into your account when 'you' (ie them) forget your password etc.)