Bank Transfer Scam

dianetheartist

A long story Im afraid...I was victim of a scam on 6th Sept by someone claiming to be Toby Allnutt--advertisng manager of The Sun newspaper...all seemed above board-obviously or I would'nt have fallen for it.. Anyway I was asked to make a payment by bank transfer to a freelance reporter of £430 to write an editorial..was told she couldnt take a card payment --Im self employed and cant take card payments either ,
I am paid via bank transfer all the time-so did'nt think it unusual at all...anyway I did the transfer at 2pm and waited for the call from reporter-which of course did'nt come--just over an hour later I had a horrible feeling and I googled the name I had been given -

to my horror I found his identity has been stolen and was being used to defraud people as he had me...I rang Barclays bank right away--around 90 mins after transfering the money--and explained what had happened..and I was told by the man on phone that it was hard luck!
He could see the money in the false account and it was more than his job was worth to give it back!! I kept explaining that it was a fraud--and must be a false bank account but he just said he could do nothing..
Now Ive had a letter from Barclays saying they were sorry but but all that was in the account was £45 and they didnt know it was a false account at the time..now they did know cos I told them--and my money was there when I spoke to them on the phone--why didnt they freeze the account then--he could hardly complain to anyone could he? So Im going to stick it out to get all my money back...I cant see how they can do this to me--do you know if they keep all the telephone calls made to them?

dianetheartist

Its a huge scam --has been going on since June according to The Sun--shame on the police in London who have not been taking this scam seriously- because 'small' amounts of money are being stolen-well its not a small amount to me...they are taking more notice now Ive been told by The Sun...

dianetheartist

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/08/13/sun-staff-identities-stolen-and-police-called-investigate-ongoing-advertising-scam

Hominu

Once the money has gone its gone. You can't do anything. Well, you can sue them if you have their real name and address, but I guess you don't.

Next time search for the name BEFORE transferring the funds.

dianetheartist

the money was there in the account when I was speaking to the guy at Barclays..he told me he could see it in the false account---hindsight is a wonderful thing.:o

bengal-stripe

You cannot recall a Faster Payment bank transfer.

When bank transfer were still BACS (taking three days), you could recall the payment during on day you had made it (maybe even during the second day, can't remember), as the money had not entered the system and the receiving bank yet.

pqrdef

Banks are only interested in fraud when somebody impersonates you to the bank. In this case, you were the victim of the deception, not the bank. The bank merely followed the instructions that you gave it. So the bank is not the victim of the fraud and not party to it and won't get involved.

They can close an account if they believe it's being used for illegal purposes, but they're not likely to do that unless they're notified by the police. They can't take the say-so of every disgruntled customer who decides he's been robbed or swindled or misled, because that would be everybody at one time or another.

This is one for the police.

pmduk

I'm not sure the Barclays assistant would have been able to check the remote account on your say-so. S/he could certainly not have classed the account as fraudulent just because you said so.

Fraudsters remove money from accounts asap to avoid having it confiscated which is what appears to have happened in this case. I'm sorry, but the money has almost certainly gone for good and was irretrievable the moment you had sent it.