Banks legally unable to investigate illegal transfer of funds

littlerock

This is another example of a scam in action
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/21/couple-lose-120000-email-hacking-fraud-legal-sector

takman

littlerock wrote: »

This is another example of a scam in action
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/21/couple-lose-120000-email-hacking-fraud-legal-sector

The reason these scams work is because people don't even take simple precautions when sending money. But when articles state things like this then it doesn't help the situation:

The email from Steed & Steed had been hacked

What a load of rubbish and statements like that just make people think it's some kind of complicated technical scam. No emails were "hacked" as stated earlier the emails was simply sent to appear to be from the solicitors.

[Deleted User]

littlerock wrote: »

I have a Barclays account and they put me through all sorts of hoops when I want to transfer large sums to another account, money on hold, phone calls to me to identify myself etc. I also know from trying to open a Barclays account for my late mother, how many hoops they make you go through to open an account. Closing an account is a whole other ball game.

Yet the thieves in this case seem to have opened a valid Barclays account, and transferred out several large sums of money to empty the account, in a short space of time, without arising any concern in the Barclays system. Just to open an account the fraudster must have had a legitimate address and proof of identify.

And if the police say they have no time to investigate, you are screwed and it seems, Barclays will allow the scamster to go on using a legitimate account for frauds.

The accounts are generally opened by students who get suckered in to using their accounts to launder money through it (for example, "working from home" scam) - by the time the account is suspended the student has sent the money overseas. The student gets the fraud marker and the criminal gets away with it.

A lot of overseas students also sell their accounts to criminals too, once they are heading back home. They have no plan to come back, don't care what the account is used for and the police aren't going to chase them, even if they could prove the details were shared.

No scammer is going to use their own, actual account for this (unless they are stupid!)

littlerock

one of my concerns in all this is that regardless of the naivety of the original users, banks seem to be washing their hands of apparently genuine accounts used for fraud. what is to stop me setting up a valid account at say Lloyd's, presumably with a few bits of incorrect info, and then letting it be used for a scam.

As I read this, if the police won't investigate ,( too busy, too short staffed or even to judge from some of the views expressed here, think, stupid Joe Public does not deserve helping) , then I can run the Scam bank account almost indefinitely. Indeed use it for money laundering. Are banks supposed to be taking steps to cut down on that by better checks.?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/victim-fraud-take-bank-court/

bigadaj

littlerock wrote: »

one of my concerns in all this is that regardless of the naivety of the original users, banks seem to be washing their hands of apparently genuine accounts used for fraud. what is to stop me setting up a valid account at say Lloyd's, presumably with a few bits of incorrect info, and then letting it be used for a scam.

As I read this, if the police won't investigate ,( too busy, too short staffed or even to judge from some of the views expressed here, think, stupid Joe Public does not deserve helping) , then I can run the Scam bank account almost indefinitely. Indeed use it for money laundering. Are banks supposed to be taking steps to cut down on that by better checks.?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/victim-fraud-take-bank-court/

Just check this forum out, plenty of reports of people having accounts closed for suspicious activity, which in most cases isn't illegal at all.

You can try and open your scam account if you want but it's likely to be shut down and you'll have a cifas market making many financial transaction very difficult if not impossible for you for years to come.

Let us know how you get on.

badger09

takman wrote: »

The reason these scams work is because people don't even take simple precautions when sending money. But when articles state things like this then it doesn't help the situation:



What a load of rubbish and statements like that just make people think it's some kind of complicated technical scam. No emails were "hacked" as stated earlier the emails was simply sent to appear to be from the solicitors.

'The extraordinary story started in late August when Peter telephoned his family’s long-used firm of solicitors, Steed & Steed, based in Braintree, Essex. He rang because he was due to pay his grandmother’s inheritance tax bill to HM Revenue & Customs and needed the law firm’s bank details. Later that morning, an email duly arrived with the firm’s account and sort code detailed in a Word file attachment. This was the first contact he had had with anyone at the law firm, he says.'

takman, I'm not doubting your technical knowledge, and I agree that the victims of this scam should have taken more care to check that the account details they'd received were correct.

However, could you please explain, how you think the fraudsters managed to send an email to these people, purportedly from their solicitors' email account, very shortly after the phone call requesting bank account details.

Unless the fraudsters listen to all incoming telephone calls:cool:, do the fraudsters monitor & intercept the solicitors' outgoing emails? If so, wouldn't Joe public describe that as a hack?

takman

badger09 wrote: »

'The extraordinary story started in late August when Peter telephoned his family’s long-used firm of solicitors, Steed & Steed, based in Braintree, Essex. He rang because he was due to pay his grandmother’s inheritance tax bill to HM Revenue & Customs and needed the law firm’s bank details. Later that morning, an email duly arrived with the firm’s account and sort code detailed in a Word file attachment. This was the first contact he had had with anyone at the law firm, he says.'

takman, I'm not doubting your technical knowledge, and I agree that the victims of this scam should have taken more care to check that the account details they'd received were correct.

However, could you please explain, how you think the fraudsters managed to send an email to these people, purportedly from their solicitors' email account, very shortly after the phone call requesting bank account details.

Well the "technical" side of it is easy; when you send an email you can specify the address it appears to come from. So sending the email and making it appear to come from the solicitors doesn't even need access to anyones email account.

badger09 wrote: »

Unless the fraudsters listen to all incoming telephone calls:cool:, do the fraudsters monitor & intercept the solicitors' outgoing emails? If so, wouldn't Joe public describe that as a hack?

There is nowhere enough details in the article to work out exactly what happened. The article doesn't even mention that he gave the solicitors his email address or why they didn't simply tell him the bank details over the phone. Even if the fraudsters had access to the email account it doesn't mean they were hacked, they may have simply had the password to the account (which is far more likely).

tempus_fugit

badger09 wrote: »

However, could you please explain, how you think the fraudsters managed to send an email to these people, purportedly from their solicitors' email account, very shortly after the phone call requesting bank account details.

Unless the fraudsters listen to all incoming telephone calls:cool:, do the fraudsters monitor & intercept the solicitors' outgoing emails? If so, wouldn't Joe public describe that as a hack?

It's common knowledge that fraudsters can spoof the "from" email address quite easily when sending them, this is how most of these scams occur. As to how they knew to send the email at that exact time, that's a mystery, but I doubt it was because they had hacked the solicitor's email account. Somehow they had inside knowledge, I think.

GingerFurball_2

littlerock wrote: »

one of my concerns in all this is that regardless of the naivety of the original users, banks seem to be washing their hands of apparently genuine accounts used for fraud. what is to stop me setting up a valid account at say Lloyd's, presumably with a few bits of incorrect info, and then letting it be used for a scam.

As I read this, if the police won't investigate ,( too busy, too short staffed or even to judge from some of the views expressed here, think, stupid Joe Public does not deserve helping) , then I can run the Scam bank account almost indefinitely. Indeed use it for money laundering. Are banks supposed to be taking steps to cut down on that by better checks.?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/victim-fraud-take-bank-court/

Give it a try and see how you get on.