My 15 yr old son scammed and ripped off. Any advice?

tempsc

Hi.

Not sure if this is the correct board so, please move if not.

My son has recently been scammed to the tune of £75 by a guy claiming to sell his iphone. As a 15yr old, my son thought he was completely capable of making this deal but as he freely admits now, he wasn't/isn't.

After seeing the ad on Gumtree, he had agreed a price of £150 for the phone, but, thinking he was protecting himself, agreed to just deposit £75 into this guys bank acct and that night received a Royal Mail tracking number. On checking the number, it was one digit wrong and on challenging the seller, the guy has caused untold difficulties and basically, my son has learnt a hard lesson.

This is where dad comes in. I have simply googled the guys number and it returns several hits for selling the same phone, but based in wildly varyting areas of the country. Obviously a scammer it would seem.

Does nyone know if the bank would help my son recover the cash? I think it's doubtful to be honest - but worth asking perhaps? What about the police? If I took the guys information and the evidence I got from the web concerning all his previous ads, would they take the matter up? My sons is devastated about this as he worked all summer long cutting peoples lawns to raise the cash.

Any advice/assistance would be appreciated.

Tks

spacey2012

Call the police, + the banks fraud team, it is obtaining money by deception.

Stephb1986_2

If it was a bank transfer the bank won't do anything, I know this because I paid a deposit to a videographer for my wedding and he's done a runner with the money and scamming 300 other brides.

I asked the bank to do a charge back and they said they couldn't. I would contact gumtree and the police and see if they can help.

Sorry to see this happening especially before christmas. I hope you get it sorted

Steph xx

Dave101t

gumtree ad... live and learn.

phill99

The police will be very unlikely to do anything.

Unfortunately, your son will probably never see the money again.

Sadly he has learnt the hard way.

mattyprice4004

Zero protection for bank transfer - no chargeback etc.

Just an expensive lesson, I'm afraid.

Why contact Gumtree? They won't do anything, they may block his account but you won't get money back. It's not their problem.

tempsc

Hmmm. Well. Thanks to all for contributing. I appreciate it. I think I may just call the police and discuss it with them. It just seems so clear cut when doing some background check on him. The same advert, posted from seemingly far afield locations all over the UK. I would have thought that such behaviour demonstrated intent to deceive or something similar?

McKneff

Name and shame on here too................

PhylPho

phill99 wrote: »

The police will be very unlikely to do anything.

Unfortunately, your son will probably never see the money again.

Sadly he has learnt the hard way.

Er, not true.

The OP has compelling evidence of a criminal fraud that has harvested victims in several parts of the UK. The police do tend -- for understandable reasons -- to be wary of chasing up reported frauds in a one-to-one situation (i.e., one seller, one purchaser) because of the difficulty in developing sufficient evidence.

The OP and her family have done some helpful sleuthing, and it's now time to contact the local police and get a Crime Number. Scammers count on victims assuming that "the police are unlikely to do anything about it" when in fact, the police, and courts, have been more active in the past two or three years where this kind of fraud is concerned.

Good luck, OP. And sorry for your son's victimization here -- sadly, Gumtree is nowadays what eBay used to be, for which reason Gumtree would seem best to keep well clear of.

artbaron

Apparently the police investigate an average of 8 instances of 'offensive comments' on Facebook and Twitter every single day, so if they refuse to investigate this demonstrable crime then they open themselves to being deemed a disgrace.

macman

Since you know the bank branch and account number, and therefore the street address, there's nothing to be lost by writing to the bank and informing them that this account is being used to commit fraud. It won't get your son his money back, but it might prevent others being scammed too.