Santander trying to steal £14,200 from me

imoneyop

grumbler wrote: »

I rest my case.

You don't seem to have made a case though.

The only way that the op has been treated any differently to the car seller that gb12345 used as an example is that his account was frozen for some reason. No one (including the op) will ever know why the account was frozen, but it is obvious that his bitcoin trading has been a contributing cause.

Personal accounts don't usually have large irregular payments from different people going into and out of them, so this will have looked strange and possibly triggered an investigation for money laundering (personally I'm surprised his account wasn't frozen and investigated earlier, but perhaps he was being monitored - I've no involvement in fraud or money laundering investigations so don't know the protocol).

A business account on the other hand, particularly where the bank are aware that it is being used for trading, would be expected to be receiving and sending large amounts of money. So as gb12345 says the bank wouldn't immediately suspect money laundering.

I have no feelings either way on bitcoins (looked into mining, but decided that the costs of kit and electricity for powering it wouldn't make it cost effective), but I admire the op for using his initiative to earn money.

Unfortuanately it looks like he has been a victim of his own success though and didn't officially make a business of it soon enough.

grumbler

imoneyop wrote: »

You don't seem to have made a case though.

For the OP the main problem is the lost £7K, not the account frozen for 2 weeks. And I don't see how a business/merchant account would have helped to prevent losing £7k in this case.

gb12345

grumbler wrote: »

For the OP the main problem is the lost £7K, not the account frozen for 2 weeks. And I don't see how a business/merchant account would have helped to prevent losing £7k in this case.

I don't think I've said it would and in fact, I agree that it wouldn't have protect him (as I previously said - "The merchant would have had the £7k reclaimed"). What I said was that a merchant/business account is less likely to have been frozen just for one fraudulent transaction.


My guess as to what happened is that the account was frozen on suspicion of money laundering and there was an unconnected investigation into one particular transaction. Why the ML investigation happened is anyones guess, but could be:

• The fraud team investigating the fraudulent transfer noticed the account's history.
• An unconnected member of staff reported it to Santander's ML hotline as they were suspicious.
• It was triggered automatically by a monitoring system.
• A payment was received from an account on a watch list.
• Payments were received/sent to a country that could raise suspicion.

The end result seems to be that the ML suspicion was cleared (otherwise the OP would not have got access to the uncontested funds) and the single payment was deemed fraudulent and returned to the account it was "stolen" from.

ap1986

Apologies as this may seem like a really dumb question... I'm not too savvy when it comes to trading and banks etc.

If I were to steal some cash, go into Tesco and buy £20 worth of stuff with the stolen cash, Tesco would then have to give £20 to the victim of my theft?!

That's a completely rhetorical question of course because a) I would never steal someones cash, b) if I did, I'd expect that (when eventually caught) I would have to reimburse the victim, not Tesco...

However, that seems to be the case here, right? Or wrong?

Someone has effectively stolen someones money, paid for something with it and the 'seller' has been 'punished' for it?!

I'm not here to bash anybody but I couldn't spend a good 45 minutes reading all the posts (admittedly skimming over some) and not comment.

I know it will be different with banks and traders etc but surely the principle still exists?! Or, maybe it would exist if it was a business bank account and not a personal one?!

Probably just being a right numpty so please be gentle!!

gb12345

ap1986 wrote: »

If I were to steal some cash, go into Tesco and buy £20 worth of stuff with the stolen cash, Tesco would then have to give £20 to the victim of my theft?!

Unlikely and not really the same as what has happened here as there is no tracablity that the £20 you used to pay for the stuff is the money that you stole.

Had you stolen someones debit card and bought £20 worth of stuff and the cardholder had complained then it would have been Tesco that lost out - the same as any business that is selling things and gets caught by a fraudster.

Of course, if Tesco could identify you then they would be able to pursue you for the £20.

ap1986

gb12345 wrote: »

Unlikely and not really the same as what has happened here as there is no tracablity that the £20 you used to pay for the stuff is the money that you stole.

Had you stolen someones debit card and bought £20 worth of stuff and the cardholder had complained then it would have been Tesco that lost out - the same as any business that is selling things and gets caught by a fraudster.

Of course, if Tesco could identify you then they would be able to pursue you for the £20.

Ahh ok, well that seems reasonable enough I suppose!

dalesrider

techspec wrote: »

Wow that took some reading.

At the end of the day - the OP as been robbed via bank transfer. Many on MSE warn about paypal etc - saying use bank transfers, as they cannot be reversed. Well clearly they can.

The bank that sent the payment should be covering the loss, Santander have acted like paypal in helping the scammer.

There is NO reversal or chargeback on bank transfers.
What there is, is good will between banks in cases of fraud.

So in this instance where the other bank can prove that the account that the funds came from was hacked or that the funds were fraudulent.
They will ask for them back.
Santander could refuse. But to do so is very dangerous. As next time the boot could be on the other foot. or lead to that bank claiming money laundering and getting the authorites involved.

There is only one place here that should be doing any refunding and that is the Escrow party who are there to protect parties from just this happening.
If they are not protecting parties in these transfers... Then what are they doing other than taking a % for nothing????

OP still has the option of getting the police involved here for fraud by the party purchasing the bit coins.
Clearly their details are known to either the OP or the Escrow company.

Bank have done nothing wrong here....

So why should I or anyone else banking with Santander stand the loss by having to pay the OP back for their failure to ensure payment received is genuine.

dalesrider

imoneyop wrote: »

A business account on the other hand, particularly where the bank are aware that it is being used for trading, would be expected to be receiving and sending large amounts of money. So as gb12345 says the bank wouldn't immediately suspect money laundering.
.

Might surprise you to find out that there will be far more internal checking on this type of account, than a personal one.

So something like this happening to a business account could see it closed down.

gb12345

dalesrider wrote: »

Clearly their details are known to either the OP or the Escrow company.

Probably not - as I understand it, bitcoins are sent to bitcoin addresses, which are basically a sequence of digits and letters and can be generated by the wallet software. There is no requirement to register your details, so basically anyone can install the bitcoin software and generate an address and receive a payment.

The OP or Escrow might have been provided with identification for each transaction, but who is to say that it would have been genuine.

Totally anonymity and no tracibility, which is why they are so loved by criminals.

innovate

Azelphur has been very quiet for many days now.