Scammed via bank transfer!? Help

RFW

GabbaGabbaHey wrote: »

Yes, you can do this - but even the initial consultation will probably cost you more than the £100 you have already lost.

And even if you did manage to get the fraudster's identity, and then managed to get his contact details, and then managed to take him to court and then won the court case, there's still a very high chance that you wouldn't get your money back.

Cut your losses while you can, and stop thinking about involving solicitors.

Exactly. That's what I was saying earlier. Anyone who is a conman will not be worried about a CCJ. If it is the right person and he bothered to attend court he'd concoct a story that would leave you with £1 per month payment that you might get once or twice.

Go to the police, if they have other complaints they may be able to mount a prosecution and he may have a stash of cash they can confiscate and distribute back to victims. All unlikely and will take a while but is the only way I can see of getting money back.

Solicitors and court all cost money, you could end up shelling out another £200 before getting to court.

DamageCase

Flyonthewall wrote: »

You'd have to be certain it is his account though otherwise you'd be suing the wrong person. Not sure how you'd prove it or find out whether it is.

There's also no guarantee you'd get them to pay up anyway.

By the way, one reply is fine. You can quote us both in one post (click the speech bubbles icon on the posts you wish to quote and click quote) or just quote one, it'll be read and replied to by whoever has an answer.

In the case of court, is his bank allowed to provide his information? Hence, is it by bank I can get his details, and if So, are they able to provide them to me/my solicitor

Flyonthewall

DamageCase wrote: »

In the case of court, is his bank allowed to provide his information? Hence, is it by bank I can get his details, and if So, are they able to provide them to me/my solicitor

All data is covered by the data protection act. So no, they're not just going to hand over account information like that.

DamageCase

Flyonthewall wrote: »

All data is covered by the data protection act. So no, they're not just going to hand over account information like that.

But what about if I go as far as Court proceedings? In this circumstance...

RFW

DamageCase wrote: »

But what about if I go as far as Court proceedings? In this circumstance...

To go to court you need a name and address, to get the name and address you need to get the information from the bank. The police are the only ones who would be able to access the information.

Flyonthewall

DamageCase wrote: »

But what about if I go as far as Court proceedings? In this circumstance...

Data is still covered by the act. That doesn't change just because you go to court, you still don't have the right to know that information.

Otherwise just anyone could go and find out personal details of anyone! You personally have no way of obtaining that information from the bank, or anywhere else that holds their personal information.

All data held, that includes all personal data, is covered by that act. No company will just tell you the information that they hold on someone.

DamageCase

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Data is still covered by the act. That doesn't change just because you go to court, you still don't have the right to know that information.

Otherwise just anyone could go and find out personal details of anyone! You personally have no way of obtaining that information from the bank, or anywhere else that holds their personal information.

All data held, that includes all personal data, is covered by that act. No company will just tell you the information that they hold on someone.

The above post sais that only the police can access such information. So if i report this to a solicitor, and they contact the police regarding this allowing them to get information from the scammer's bank? Is this viable?

RFW

DamageCase wrote: »

The above post sais that only the police can access such information. So if i report this to a solicitor, and they contact the police regarding this allowing them to get information from the scammer's bank? Is this viable?

NO. Just report it to the police. Don't throw money away on a solicitor. A soicitor's first question would be "What did the police say?".

Why don't you want to report it to the police? Was the product illegal?

Flyonthewall

DamageCase wrote: »

The above post sais that only the police can access such information. So if i report this to a solicitor, and they contact the police regarding this allowing them to get information from the scammer's bank? Is this viable?

It should be you reporting it. You're the victim of the crime.

Solicitors aren't there to report crimes for you.

Report it to the police yourself asap.

Forget solictors and court cases, it's going to cost you and even if (and it's a big if) you did manage to find out who to sue the chances are you'll never see a penny. It's not worth it for £100.

There is a chance (probably only very small, but a chance nonetheless) that the police may catch them. However, they can only do that if you report him.

You need to accept that you're highly unlikely to see that £100 again and in future be more careful, don't do bank transfers to strangers and only deal cash in hand on Gumtree.

bxboards

DamageCase wrote: »

So bought a £100 item from gumtree. Long story short, i sent him the money and 3 weeks later no response. I dont have any of his details since gumtree is sort of anonymous. He only gave me his account number, sort code and his [false] name. Is there any thing i can possibly do ? Urgent help ? If i go to my bank and tell them that the money was wrongly transferred to someone else's account since he gave me a false name, can they do anything? Thanks

This is what Gumtree say on every page:

'
Stay Safe

• "Meet face to face, never send payment for items you've not seen"'

There is very little you can do, and you won't get your money back. You can report it to Action Fraud, but this will just go into a pile of on line crime statistics.


We see a lot of Gumtree scams here and you won't be the first and won't be the last. Gumtree themselves say it's for face to face transactions only, but time and again people ignore this and send money for items then post here asking to to get the money back.



You won't get your money back sadly. It's gone.