Victim of car insurance scam?

fot09

hi to all!

a friend paid just under £1400 over 2 payments to a car insurance scam. The payments were direct debit from her bank account. On discovering that she had been the victim of a scam she had the payments stopped. Obvious question really, is there any way that she could get her money back?

many thanks.

FlameCloud

Who did she pay the money to?

fot09

hi flamecloud,

i will be speaking to her later to get more details. the money was paid from her account to the scammers, will have the name and details of exactly who the money was paid to later.

many thanks.

zxspeccy

If the payments have been made from a UK bank account by Direct Debits then these are covered by the Indemnity Scheme, and is backed by Bank sponsorship. Any false claims made by Direct Debit can be claimed back through the Bank as an "unauthorised transaction" via the indemnity scheme. Usually the Bank will refund in full same day/nextday.

fot09

hi,

she is a disabled lady and this happened late summer early autum last year. not sure if that will have any bearing on her situation?

InsideInsurance

Makes no difference under the DD guarantee but I would strongly suggest getting more info as there are hundreds of posts on here about "scams" and "miss sellings" etc which are all perfectly legitimate

dunstonh

were these direct debits or debit card transactions?
who actually were they to?

fot09

Sorry for not getting back sooner. The payments were made to 'Astuto Asscociates', Astuto Insurance, with a sort code for a Nat West bank in London. The payments were made by direct debit straight from the account, a debit card was not used.

Thanks.

InsideInsurance

If it is a DD and she disputes the transactions she can tell her bank they are unauthorised and under the direct debit guarantee the bank must instantly refund her.

Of cause if it turns out she is mistaken and the are authorised it can lead to significant problems with her policy and future insurances

fot09

I take it that 'authorised' refers to a bona fide insurance company? This particular company, or lack of one, is listed on the blacklist of the FSA website. If authorised means that the direct debit was set up to pay this company, then yes it was.

InsideInsurance

Authorised as in they gave permission to the company but then forgot, changed their mind, dont recognise the branding because of it being sold under different name online etc