Been scammed, builder had his email hacked - phishing

ljonski

Talking about this situation to a friend last night. The bank has some responsibility in these situations IMHO as they dont check or match the spurious account details with the name of the real recipient.

saverbuyer

martinsurrey wrote: »

OP if this went to court it wouldn't take much for you not to have to pay anything again.

(the builders practice of sending invoices and payment details by email alone, along with the fact that the issue was caused by his lack of IT security, point to negligence on his part)

I wouldn't be so sure. It's contributory negligence at best. The OP hasn't taken reasonable steps here. When transferring a large sum of money, IMO it's reasonable to expect the OP, after a change in payment details, to check in person or over the phone that the new details are correct. There's also the question of proving who's account was hacked. The conveyance scam in the majority of cases isn't the result of the solicitors email getting hacked but rather the clients.

Anyway opinions are like !!!!!!. Everyone has one.

First port of call is the builder's insurer.

mattaus

ljonski wrote: »

Talking about this situation to a friend last night. The bank has some responsibility in these situations IMHO as they dont check or match the spurious account details with the name of the real recipient.

That's what I'm fighting for, allowing fraudsters set up fake accounts to scam people

martinsurrey

saverbuyer wrote: »

I wouldn't be so sure. It's contributory negligence at best. The OP hasn't taken reasonable steps here. When transferring a large sum of money, IMO it's reasonable to expect the OP, after a change in payment details, to check in person or over the phone that the new details are correct. There's also the question of proving who's account was hacked. The conveyance scam in the majority of cases isn't the result of the solicitors email getting hacked but rather the clients.

Anyway opinions are like !!!!!!. Everyone has one.

First port of call is the builder's insurer.

I agree, although OP has had the emails checked and it was builders end that was "hacked".

Solicitors also protect against this by providing bank details at the start of the process, and tell clients that no bank detail changes should be accepted, other than if confirmed by XYZ method.

They also use more robust email services than hotmail.

A builder that (as is common) sends emails with bank details on as his only method of communicating payment methods and details to clients, will find it hard to defend that its not his fault when a email with payment details from his business email account is accepted by a client.

your right though, it could go either way, but courts hold a high standard of responsibility for things like this from traders.

TheCyclingProgrammer

No legal opinion on this, but if the email came from the builder's email address I can see why they'd have no reason to believe it wasn't genuine.

I'd argue that it was the builder that was scammed here, more so than OP. I largely agree with martinsurrey that it is a business's responsibility to secure any important IT systems they use in their business *and* maintain adequate protection or insurance against fraudulent activity. To not do so is negligent in my book, especially when we're talking about dealing with clients paying large sums of money.

OP - do you have any legal advice service from your home insurance that you could speak to on this? I would seriously recommend getting professional legal advice if a lot of money is at stake here.

saverbuyer

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

No legal opinion on this, but if the email came from the builder's email address I can see why they'd have no reason to believe it wasn't genuine.

I'd argue that it was the builder that was scammed here, more so than OP. I largely agree with martinsurrey that it is a business's responsibility to secure any important IT systems they use in their business *and* maintain adequate protection or insurance against fraudulent activity. To not do so is negligent in my book, especially when we're talking about dealing with clients paying large sums of money.

OP - do you have any legal advice service from your home insurance that you could speak to on this? I would seriously recommend getting professional legal advice if a lot of money is at stake here.

I agree with that. OP check your home insurance policy to see if it has free legal cover. You'll get an initial consultation and hopefully an opinion from counsel for free.

mattaus

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

No legal opinion on this, but if the email came from the builder's email address I can see why they'd have no reason to believe it wasn't genuine.

I'd argue that it was the builder that was scammed here, more so than OP. I largely agree with martinsurrey that it is a business's responsibility to secure any important IT systems they use in their business *and* maintain adequate protection or insurance against fraudulent activity. To not do so is negligent in my book, especially when we're talking about dealing with clients paying large sums of money.

OP - do you have any legal advice service from your home insurance that you could speak to on this? I would seriously recommend getting professional legal advice if a lot of money is at stake here.

The money isn't hugely massive, I've spoken to my work legal advice and they said not to pay anything but I wasnt 100% sure they new what the were talking about, only what I wanted to hear. It was only when I spoke to Citizens advice it changed my approach.

For clearance myself and the builder have both agreed in a professional manner that meeting half way is the correct approach and maybe in the next months I can claim it back from Natwest for allowing fraudulent accounts to be set up. At this moment he feels just as bad as what I do and there will be no court action

mattaus

saverbuyer wrote: »

I agree with that. OP check your home insurance policy to see if it has free legal cover. You'll get an initial consultation and hopefully an opinion from counsel for free.

Checked my home insurance to see if I was covered, I have a pretty good one but they don't cover this sort of thing. The builder also doesn't have insurance even though they initially said they did and for us not to worry

Head_The_Ball

mattaus wrote: »

..and we received the final invoice, an email after that was about changing the bank details which I thought was odd but it was from the same email chain and the same email address along with the company’s logo so even though I thought it was a bit odd I had no reason to believe it wasn't legit. I replied to the email saying OK send the new bank details through and the next morning the fraudster sent them through and I made payment as an online bank transfer (Halifax),

mattaus wrote: »

Yeah everything was the exact same, same email address, same company logo, it was part of the ongoing email conversations as this was how we arranged things, I even had my friend who is an IT expert to check the email address (inspect)

If you had enough concerns to ask an 'expert' to check the email address, why didn't you phone the builder?

martinsurrey

mattaus wrote: »

The money isn't hugely massive, I've spoken to my work legal advice and they said not to pay anything but I wasnt 100% sure they new what the were talking about, only what I wanted to hear. It was only when I spoke to Citizens advice it changed my approach.

For clearance myself and the builder have both agreed in a professional manner that meeting half way is the correct approach and maybe in the next months I can claim it back from Natwest for allowing fraudulent accounts to be set up. At this moment he feels just as bad as what I do and there will be no court action

Natwest are not going to be an avenue for this, they can only act when they know whats going on, which it sounds like they have done.

Be careful with thinking you and the builder have sorted this.

You wouldn't be the first person on here who thought a builder was a nice guy, and had sorted things out amicably, only for a court letter to show up a few weeks later.

A payment now could be used as an admission of your responsibility in the whole affair.