Is there any help for money lost through a confidence trick?

John_Smith12345

Hi

I am writing here anonymously on behalf of a friend, who has confided in me and who I would like to help, but has no knowledge of this posting. In order to protect the identity of my friend I have gone to reasonable security lengths to make this account anonymous and hard to identify - though would appreciate it if people did not try too hard .

Six years ago my friend (lets call them A) was befriended by someone I will call B. They got to know each other very well over the course of a little over a year. After that B asked for a big favour, needing a large loan but unable to get one in his own name he asked A and their partner if it would be possible for them to borrow the money on B's behalf, who would then pay them back each month. Of course what happened was that it was fine for a few months, then B disappeared and stopped paying, leaving A with the repayments but none of the cash. Later on it transpired that B is a drug dealer and general bad egg, and had tried the same trick with a number of people A knew.

A feels very ashamed about being so stupid to fall for this, so much in fact that they have told almost nobody nor asked for help. It was very out of character and would cause tremendous difficultly for them if it was widely known, as they had not previously considered borrowing similar amounts of money to help their parents who have also been in financial difficulty. A has now been paying this loan back at £200/month for five years, the total was £15k so I am guessing a 10 year loan, I believe likely with the cooperative bank.

My question is whether there is any help available for people who have fallen for a confidence trick such as this? I appreciate the best defence is not being so silly in the first place. At the risk of sounding like a sob story or Nigerian scam, A is not particularly well off, having two children and working two part time jobs but still making little enough to get some housing benefit, so £200 a month makes quite a difference.

Thanks for any help or suggestions you may have.

John

downnotout

I dont think that your friend will have a leg to stand on unfortunately, if the loan is in his name then it will remain his debt. A crumb of comfort may be to inform the police, but that can open a can of worms that could be ugly. I hope someone else can come along and tell you different.

Mojisola

I would contact the police - not because it will get any money back but because B has probably moved on to another victim. People who do these things don't stop at one person.

John_Smith12345

Thanks for your comments, which reinforce my own view that there is not a lot that can be done... I seemed worth asking - if anyone was likely to know differently it would be someone here

matttye

Mojisola wrote: »

I would contact the police - not because it will get any money back but because B has probably moved on to another victim. People who do these things don't stop at one person.

Police won't do anything - it's a civil matter.

No crime has been committed.

Vikipollard

John_Smith12345 wrote: »

Hi

Later on it transpired that B is a drug dealer and general bad egg, and had tried the same trick with a number of people A knew.


John

The police may not be able to do anything per se, but if the above is true, the additional intelligence may well be able to build a bigger picture for them, especially if the other people A knew were prepared to inform the police too.

tallyhoh

the police may get involved, there has been several stories recently about men (& women) conning people through dating agencies etc.

Worth trying.

dancingfairy

Hmmm not sure there's much the police can do. There's nothing stopping someone asking someone to lend them money. It's really up to the person concerned to be sure where the money is going and to agree a repayment schedule and to understand that if the other person stops paying dissapears etc then the loan is in their name and is theirs to repay
Unless it can be shown that the person was vulnerable ie mentally disabled or something or that there was some kind of blackmail or something involved I'm not sure the police can/will do anything.
The only real avenues your friend has is to take the person to court. Obviously your friend can prove that they took out a loan from the bank but can they prove it was then given to this other person (ie by bank transfer or similar?). Can they prove on what terms they loaned the money to the drug dealer -what was the repayment supposed to be etc. Basically it will need to stand up in court that your friend borrowed the money for this other person and it was not a gift to thisother person and that it has not been paid back.
Even if you win you need to understand the difficulty in actually getting money out of the drug dealing person. They may lie about their earnings, they may have tricks to hide from bailiffs and they may not own their own home. It may be possible but it could be a long, drawnout process. Your friend may, of course just be satisifed that their is a judgement against the debtor.
Another option is to just make it widely known what this person is like. However if the individual is less than nice it could obviously make things difficult for the person who leant the money in the first place
Not an easy situation.
df