Scam alert: Conveyancing fraud

davidmcn

csgohan4 wrote: »

Do Solicitor indeminity covers this?

Unless it was their fault (e.g. lax IT security or a fraudster in their office) then I doubt it.

csgohan4

davidmcn wrote: »

Unless it was their fault (e.g. lax IT security or a fraudster in their office) then I doubt it.

But if hackers hacked their emails and sent out altered invoices, who's fault is it?

You can't expect every client to double check the invoice account numbers before sending money?

davidmcn

csgohan4 wrote: »

You can't expect every client to double check the invoice account numbers before sending money?

That's what we're all advised to do. It's up to them whether they want to take that precaution.

csgohan4

davidmcn wrote: »

That's what we're all advised to do. It's up to them whether they want to take that precaution.

I guess fair point, especially sending that amount of money.

wwl

davidmcn wrote: »

Unless it was their fault (e.g. lax IT security or a fraudster in their office) then I doubt it.

However if it's a known issue it could be argued that they owe their client a duty of care to warn them about it.

clint_S

davidmcn wrote: »

Unless it was their fault (e.g. lax IT security or a fraudster in their office) then I doubt it.

Prove it! Unless you know exactly what you are looking for you wouldn't be able to spot that they were hacked. Email headers might be the way most people would look but these can easily be injected with spoofed IPs or spoofed addresses. They would deny it and unless they had a lots of complaints it's going to be your word against theirs.

Dhrucku

Things like this should be done through written letters and not based on the back of emails!

I've just received a letter headed by my solicitors asking for my deposit via telegraphic transfer stating the name of the bank, sort code/account number together with a quoted reference.

She was very naive to react to an email in this way IMO.

wwl

Dhrucku wrote: »

Things like this should be done through written letters and not based on the back of emails!

I've just received a letter headed by my solicitors asking for my deposit via telegraphic transfer stating the name of the bank, sort code/account number together with a quoted reference.

She was very naive to react to an email in this way IMO.

Of course it's completely impossible to fake a letter....

mashmash90

Saw this on BBC breakfast this morning, shocking how something like that could happen. The poor woman on there lost over 70 grand because she didn't notice the email address of her usual solicitor was missing a letter. We're due to complete in a couple of weeks and I'm going to be checking everything with a fine tooth comb for sure!

Keep_pedalling

Unfortunately the money is almost certainly not in the UK anymore and there is very little chance it can be recovered.

Last year I was on a jury where a foreign student was standing trial with regards to a similar fraud against a charity who received a fake invoice to supply a truck in Africa. The guy was obviously a patsy who allowed his personal account to be used to launder the money.

I was not very impressed by the police, who when asked if they had managed to trace the owners of two UK accounts where some of the money had been transferred answered that they had not because they had only become aware of these accounts 2 weeks before the trial, which was 9 months after our guy had been arrested, so once they had an arrest it seemed they had little interest in trying to find anyone else further up the food chain.

It also emerged that quite a few students had been approached for the purposes of using their existing account to handle "business transactions" so the criminals don't have to risk setting up fraudulent accounts they just use existing legit ones.