DD fraud - any way of finding out who?

kazzah60

Thrugelmir wrote: »

There's are old saying. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw
stones.

I would have thought that there should have been adequate procedures in place to account for and verify the legitimacy of all monies paid out of the bank account. That's where the focus of attention should be on your part.

yes- I fully agree - we employ an accountant to ensure our accounts are fully compliant with Charity guidelines.
Our accountant and our charity secretary ( volunteer) receive copies of the bank statements and yes these anomalies SHOULD have been picked up - as i have previously stated, the two DD's came out of one financial years accounting system
and I will now be putting systems in place via online banking so that a third person can check the transactions.

At no point have I said we are blameless in this situation, however the adequate procedures you mention - are the ones that have picked up this "error" - so something was working

innovate

Kazzah60, you completely mis-interpret the guidance given to the companies about verification of the customer details.

Firstly, it doesn't say anywhere that the companies have to confirm who the bank account is held by (as an aside, this is impossible, anyway, for anyone but the financial institution the account is held with. Moreover, it is neither necessary nor in some cases desirable that the person(s) receiving the service/goods actually also pay(s) the bill.

Secondly, the advice given to companies is simply a 'cya' exercise of the Payments Council / the financial institutions. What they are saying is that it will never be the financial institution's responsibility if the companies don't get paid. That's all.

Companies who collect payments by DD have no duty, legal or moral or otherwise, to verify the identity of the person / organisation whose account they collect money from.

Persons / organisations whose accounts have been charged erroneously / fraudulently are 100% protected by the Direct Debit guarantee.

So all is in order. Time to move on.

kazzah60

ok - I have been put in my place

I suppose it was rather silly of me to assume the responsibility of trying to get to the bottom of the problem

I should have been more worldly wise and jaded and just flippantly asked for the money back without any thought of trying to prevent something similar happening again

my mistake

kirkbyinfurnesslad_2

Dr_Cuckoo3 wrote: »

yes - it's because they are small , I have other banks that don't check misspellings etc

It shows that the bank is in receipt of the details though

That reminds me still have a Cumberland bs account from growing up in cumbria as a kid!! Not much in it lol

pinkdalek

Thrugelmir wrote: »

There's are old saying. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw
stones.

Or take a shower.........

kirkbyinfurnesslad_2

Was the any point in this thread

JuicyJesus

kazzah60 wrote: »

ok - I have been put in my place

I suppose it was rather silly of me to assume the responsibility of trying to get to the bottom of the problem

I should have been more worldly wise and jaded and just flippantly asked for the money back without any thought of trying to prevent something similar happening again

my mistake

How on earth would you have stopped it happening again...?

kazzah60

JuicyJesus wrote: »

How on earth would you have stopped it happening again...?

because IF it was somebody who volunteers within the organisation who was trying it on, or somebody associated with the organisation then if I knew about it, I could have terminated their trusteeship or involved the police if necessary.

I realise now that it shouldn't have worried me, that mistakes happen ( assuming it IS a mistake on the part of the RAC) that as long as the organisation got the money back - then it was all acceptable

silly me- just thinking of trying to protect a charity from potential fraud, for taking my responsibilities as a trustee seriously and for thinking of everyone who has raised money via car boot sales, sponsored runs, sponsored bike rides etc etc

not a mistake I would make again after the advice I have received here

Buzby

Easy - you have a standing instruction with the bank that prohibits the use of ANY DD mandate. The reason is obvious, an originator simply asserts the customer has requested a service or goods and without any other verification, can set up a mandate with no further correspondence and take as much as they want, as often as they want, when they want.

Sure, once you realise this (after the event) you can seek a reversal, but to my mind this is hardly sufficient. By disallowing any DD to be set up, this keeps you fully in control, and nothing leaves your A/c unless you explicitly arranged it.

kazzah60

Buzby wrote: »

Easy - you have a standing instruction with the bank that prohibits the use of ANY DD mandate. The reason is obvious, an originator simply asserts the customer has requested a service or goods and without any other verification, can set up a mandate with no further correspondence and take as much as they want, as often as they want, when they want.

Sure, once you realise this (after the event) you can seek a reversal, but to my mind this is hardly sufficient. By disallowing any DD to be set up, this keeps you fully in control, and nothing leaves your A/c unless you explicitly arranged it.

Buzby - THANK YOU - this is not a measure I had considered as we have two regular DDs - one to Just Giving and another for our online franking mail payments - I will look at the possibility of of moving those to another account and then asking the bank to disallow DD's on our account

thank you for your comments and at least understanding that prevention was the main query behind my original post.