Bank Transfer - How to Reclaim

robin1941

Hi All,
All sellers would love you to pay by Bank Transfer as its instant and non recoverable "or is it "
I paid by Bank Transfer and now have no goods.My bank helpful as to sellers account location but have put the onus on me to contact sellers bank.Sellers bank put up the shutters saying its not fraud but deception and was quite rude(anyone want to know what bank).Anyone else had this problem and how to solve or do i put out a warning " NEVER PAY BY BANK TRANSFER YOUR'E MONEY HAS GONE FOREVER "

Cheers.

frivolous_fay

I'm sorry that you've experienced this hassle with the seller. Bank Transfer in itself is not your major problem, it sounds like the seller was.

Bank Transfer is a brilliant way to pay but should only be used with caution under the following circumstances:

- You trust your seller 100%
- You trust your seller 100%
- You trust your seller 100%

If there is bad feedback... or a 'problem with paypal'... or suspicious circumstances... DON'T PAY.

Can you tell us any more about your seller? What was the item? How much are we talking? Do you know his address?

soolin

I have completely double standards and admit it. As a seller i love bank transfers, but as I wrote only a few days ago in a post I would never ever use one myself as a buyer purely because you have no comeback if the seller does a runner or refuses to supply your goods.

Bank transfers are great for sellers, dreadful for buyers. For buying it has to be paypal backed by a credit card, with no exceptions, every time.

Soo

robin1941

Hi Frivolous Fay,

It was a LCD TV and was £500 and i do have his address(if it can be proved he lives there as there is three names invovled) also two telephone numbers which are on permanent answering service so no one ever replies to left messages.I am not the only one scammed there is four of us and we are in Email contact with each other. Two paid by PayPal and are getting re-embursed less £18 fees but the other one paid by cheque so has lost out like me.My question is,has anyone out there ever reclaimed a Bank Transfer from their bank and if so how did they go about it.
Many Thanks..
Ps:-I like you ID (haha)

soolin

A bank transfer cannot be reclaimed. There have been threads both here way in the past and on the unmoderated ebay boards where it was suggested at one point that if the buyer won a court case they could reclaim the money that way, but not by recalling the bank transfer.

The whole point of a bank transfer is that once it is sent it is safe, it can never be recalled. If that were not true then no one would ever accept a bank transfer again as there would never be a guarantee that someone would claim fraud and get it returned.

I think your only recourse is through the courts but a £500 TV where bank transfer is offered sounds like an obvious scam, and if that is the case then the scammer may well have hidden himself behind false names or 'drop' addresses and you may never be actually able to prove 100% who got your money.

Soo

robin1941

hi Soolin,

Yes i believe you are right and i might have too resort to the small claims court but i do know who has my money because i have his bank details ie account number and address of local branch where it is based.My only concern is "who do i sue " his bank or him because i have gone down this road before and won my case only to find out that when the balliffs called at the known residence of the offender no one at that address woukld say who they were so the balliffs just walked away.Sad storey i know but even if you win there is no guarentee the courts will enforce the law. Three of us have informed the Police but none of us hold out any hope of them even getting off there fat backsides and doing anything.I did read on the Ebay community forums where someone who worked for a bank did say that they all had an unwritten law that if anyone could prove that the money had been in affect stolen the offending bank would reimbuse customers bank but i can't find the thread now.Still open to comments from anyone who think they may know the answer(any Bankers out there).
Many Thanks

soolin

The bank are not liable as they acted on your instructions, you cannot hold them responsible for your being scammed if you didn't even know you were being scammed. Even if they were liable you would still need to have the backing of a court case in your favour as otherwise anyone could cry scam and get their money back. It is not up to the discretion of banks to recall payments, it is written within financial law.

Incidentally, I have worked on and off in a bank for many years. All you can know is the sort code and account number, even if you can link that to a branch, which is possible with some banks and not with others as most banks now have centralised sort codes, it doesn't link your payment definitely to a person. Even if you were given a name when you made the transfer it doesn't mean it wasn't a joint account or even a business account t/as someone else, so you still have no proof to link it to 1 person at 1 address. I make regular transfers to my sister's account and the name i pay as set up in my online bank, is not the name she receives it under. She changed her surname but the banking details remain the same.


As for small claims and non recoverable debt, that was my concern and why I suggested this might not work as the scammer may well have covered his tracks.

robin1941

Just had another word with the Police and they said they will only just log the incident for future reference but surgested i contact Trading Standards who might get involved seeing there is a few of us. The only way the Police will get invovled is from a request from TS and then they work together to form a case for prosecution.So far he's got away with approx £5000 - not bad for a months work!!! Think i might take up a new proffession " Ebay Scammer " pays well and 100% tax free and 99% sure of not getting caught !!

Print_Screen

Surely this is 'fraud' or 'obtaining goods by deception' or 'theft', is it not? If so then does that not make it a criminal case so the police have to act?

Maybe someone with a legal background can clarify.

Sometimes the police can be lazy or just plan ignorant of the law. I was threatened once by someone claiming he had a knife. The police claimed that because I didn't actually see the knife then there was nothing they could do.
Since when was threatening to stab someone not an offence!