DD fraud - any way of finding out who?

kazzah60

Hominu wrote: »

Just remember that what you are likely to get is the date/time of the DD setup, the originators reference (RAC), the amount and the frequency of payment. You are not going to get the address or even the name of the person who gave RAC your account number. Therefore its typically easier to just cancel the DD and search through your transactions for where that DD has paid out.

The 'Duty of care' can not be easily adhered to: Companies such as RAC have no way of knowing if the user has entered their own account number or someone else's.

If it's fraud, the bank will involve the police directly (after refunding you), no need for you to do it.

thanks for telling me that - I am probably naive but I just think it is outrageous that potentially someone has used our bank account details falsely and we aren't entitled to know who
it's a wonder that more people don't try this trick

I appreciate that the originating company has no insider knowledge of the account details - but you would think that between them the bank and the RAC would actually have some way of checking that the name of the account and the number were actually the correct pairing - I do think electronic systems are partially to blame - years ago when you set up a DD you had to sign a piece of paper - if that system was still in place the bank would have some proof of who set the DD up
of course presumably the RAC DOES know - hopefully they will let the police know if it is fraud

BMN

kazzah60 wrote: »

Actually the Direct Debit website ( https://www.directdebit.co.uk) states that the organisation claiming the funds have a duty of care to ensure that the account details/name/address/etc are correct before collecting the money

I have asked the bank for the information about the DD and any paperwork and they will be sending it to me in 5 working days
if it is a fraudulent act- then we have no alternative other than involving the police

However the attitude I was subjected to from the staff at RAC was completely uncaring - from their attitude I believe they may have made a mistake when entering the bank account details - but i suspect they wouldn't admit that either

Couldn't find anything about the duty of care you mentioned. The website did however mention that you should always check your bank statement.

You wouldn't be able to involve the police yourself because technically you wouldn't have been the victim of the alleged fraud.

Just inform your bank and let them sort it out.

Archi_Bald

kazzah60 wrote: »

Actually the Direct Debit website ( https://www.directdebit.co.uk) states that the organisation claiming the funds have a duty of care to ensure that the account details/name/address/etc are correct before collecting the money

Could you post a link to the relevant page please?

Gromitt

kazzah60 wrote: »

it's a wonder that more people don't try this trick

More people don't try this 'trick' because not only do they need a valid sort code and account number, they WILL get found out eventually, the DD will be marked as unauthorised and refunded, and then the company concerned will chase the person concerned for alternative methods of payment, possibly costing them extra fees.

Likewise, if fraud is suspected, the 'fraudster' can be asked for proof of their account number and if its nothing like the one they gave the company concerned, they can be questioned about how they obtained it and why they decided to use it. In many cases I would expect simple typos, which would rule out fraud.

pqrdef

kazzah60 wrote: »

Actually the Direct Debit website ( www.directdebit.co.uk) states that the organisation claiming the funds have a duty of care to ensure that the account details/name/address/etc are correct before collecting the money

Whoever did this will have had to give their own name and address to benefit from it.

They can't be serious about checking account details, because few payees do. BACS run an account validation service, but it doesn't check postcodes or anythig like that.

A few payees do check account numbers. Techniques used are
(1) ask you to send them an unsigned cheque
(2) ask you to send them a bank statement
(3) ask you to send them a small electronic payment, and find out where it came from
(4) the PayPal method - send you a small payment and ask you to tell them the amount or a code attached

Most payees reckon this is all too elaborate. And the banks will do nothing. Not only will they do nothing to check the data supplied, but they'll do nothing to alert the account holder to a new DD being set up. Not even a text, or an email, or a login message. It would probably save them more than it costs, but they seem to have set their faces against it on principle.

However the attitude I was subjected to from the staff at RAC was completely uncaring - from their attitude I believe they may have made a mistake when entering the bank account details - but i suspect they wouldn't admit that either

Could well be. But they'll also get a lot of customers misquoting their own account numbers. It'll be a perpetual hassle and they probably figure they can do without account-holders making a fuss.

Mr_K

More than likely its not fraud at all but something somebody (who has possibly left now) set up years ago, on automatic renewal, and has been forgotten about. If it was fraud they be after a bit more than breakdown cover.

Do a bit more investigating before wasting the Police's time.

kazzah60

Mr_K wrote: »

More than likely its not fraud at all but something somebody (who has possibly left now) set up years ago, on automatic renewal, and has been forgotten about. If it was fraud they be after a bit more than breakdown cover.

Do a bit more investigating before wasting the Police's time.

whilst I agree on personal bank accounts this is a possibility - with ours being a charity account, this isn't the case - we have had NO reason to set up RAC cover - which would be useless as we have no vehicles to assign the cover to - also we have checked bank statements back to 2005 and 2012 is the first time this DD occurs- which is probably how and why the accountant picked the anomaly up

and it's NOT a case of wasting the police's time - the money is NOT mine and I have a duty of care as a Trustee of the charity to prove that this is not simply one of the trustees setting up a DD to pay their own bills - and actually I don't think this sort of thing IS a waste of time - there is always a loser in these scenarios - someone will have been providing a service to a customer - who has not been paying for that service - yes our Charity will get it's money back - but will the RAC ? possibly not- and of course how do they recoup that money|?
by putting up charges to customers - so in the end the consumer loses out

kazzah60

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Could you post a link to the relevant page please?

as ever- can't find it now- but I will endeavour to locate it from my browser history - it was embedded in a few links - I'll try them all and see if I can find it again

although from what others here have said I should just accept it and move on !

it's not fraud and it is a waste of police time !

well thats me put firmly in my place !:)

kazzah60

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Could you post a link to the relevant page please?

http://www.bacs.co.uk/Bacs/Businesses/DirectDebit/Services/Pages/PaperlessDD.aspx

i located this link- it's not the exact one I saw yesterday - this one covers paperless DD's

will try and fine the other one now

pinkdalek

"The money has not been authorised to be debited by anyone in the charity that i know of- therefore it has been fraudulently taken out of our account"

No. It has been set up on your account in error. You are assuming someone has deliberatley stolen monies from the account, when you have no proof. Look at the facts if there had been fraud on your account there would have been considerably more transactions processed on it than a DD to RAC over the period of time.

RAC probably don't give a hoot about the lost monies, they will put it down to human error and if there is a trend will instigate new procedures to stop this in the future. Maybe complain to RAC for all your stress and who knows they may even make a token donation to your charity.