Don't be fooled by cunning con artists

schiff

Let's cut to the quick. Are you prepared to say which banks you have accounts with at the moment. If you have any at all, it removes much of your case that banks are rogues and should be locked up. In your own small way you are keeping them going.

It's bounden duty btw Sorry (Grammar Nazi!)

eskbanker

peterbaker wrote: »

We the customers do get what what banks have become. I don't think millions "liked" banks when they learned HSBC was fined for moneylaundering drug money, and then reportedly was found to have been handling terrorist money too, do you?

Perhaps all HSBC employees should be forced in the company's time to watch the Netflix documentary on the subject and to individually write an accurate synopsis thereafter and sign it before being permitted to get up and go to lunch, in order to remain temporarily compliant in their current roles. Their synopses should be marked for accuracy, and any who fail to geddit should have their compliant status nullified.

Should have guessed it would only be a matter of time before HSBC's American misdemeanours were shoehorned into the thread! I'm still puzzled though - you put great store by the 2010 letter about the need for UK banks to improve and yet keep harping on about matters that predated it, such as PPI and now the HSBC controls issue which, as per your linked report, related to activities in 2007/8; I don't believe anyone is trying to deny that the industry of ten years ago was in need of overhaul but it's pretty lame to cite stories of what was going on pre-crunch as evidence of "what banks have become"!

peterbaker wrote: »

An authorised payment institution ... must maintain organisational arrangements sufficient to minimise the risk of the loss or diminution of relevant funds or relevant assets through fraud, misuse, negligence or poor administration.

It seems that banks are being reckless and negligent with fraud risks and are failing in the above bolded duty in respect of executing multiple unusual anonymising transactions which can drain life savings in customers accounts in a matter of minutes without any explanation, don't we think? Perhaps it suits some banks and some of their more dubious customers that their systems are geared to handle large numbers of multiple unusual anonymising transactions without explanation?

Interesting that you quote HSBC in your post, in that, since their high-profile US/Mexico problems of a decade ago, their controls are now generally (as unscientifically measured by posts on here) seen as being some of the tightest. Do posters say "it's reassuring to know that HSBC takes security seriously and that my money is safe with them"? Do they ****! There are loads of threads moaning about HSBC's relatively stringent account-opening criteria, their (perceived to be) over-zealous approach to ID verification, their controls over cash transactions in branches, etc, etc. All of these controls are in place to minimise risk but this is inevitably at the expense of customer convenience, so it's not as simple as blaming banks for customers' accounts being emptied if the customers themselves resist or resent the security checks put in place to help protect them!

I have yet to see a poster praising a bank for suppressing one or more transactions for further analysis or validation, even though many in hindsight expect banks to have done this along the lines you express, i.e. 'they must have known that I wouldn't normally send £x to Y'. Instead it's the usual complaints that 'in this day and age transfers should be instantaneous', 'it's MY money!', etc, etc....

schiff

eskbanker wrote: »

I have yet to see a poster praising a bank for suppressing one or more transactions for further analysis or validation, even though many in hindsight expect banks to have done this along the lines you express, i.e. 'they must have known that I wouldn't normally send £x to Y'. Instead it's the usual complaints that 'in this day and age transfers should be instantaneous', 'it's MY money!', etc, etc....

This is an interesting point. As I mentioned earlier I had an online transaction using my Yorkshire Bank credit card that didn't go smoothly, due to 'interference' from the bank. I found myself irritated and frustrated and yet, underneath it all, the bank were 'protecting' me from what they perceived as a possible fraudulent transaction. I only thought of that on reflection afterwards.

peterbaker

schiff wrote: »

Let's cut to the quick. Are you prepared to say which banks you have accounts with at the moment. If you have any at all, it removes much of your case that banks are rogues and should be locked up. In your own small way you are keeping them going.

I'm afraid your logic is a total hash. Some of the arguments from people claiming to understand UK banking really are so limited and binary - no wonder when we turn any handle at a bank we can end up with a totally skewed and socially useless result.

Now then, I'll should perhaps not heap all that your way if you are a mere customer, so suffice to say my dear schiff, I was already well advanced in discovering stoozing techniques before Martin Lewis launched MSE. I really don't think any of my small ways have kept banks going in the p-poor directions they seem culturally unable to resist - quite the opposite - I have rubbed their noses in several of their messes over the years.

It's bounden duty btw Sorry (Grammar Nazi!)

No it isn't - it is a simply quoted duty which I have bolded! But as you say, my quoted and bolded PSR 2017 snippet may well elucidate (another exquisite word introduced to this thread, but not by me:p) a bounden duty upon banks, if you wish to use such God-fearing language, so many thanks for highlighting it!

eskbanker wrote:

Interesting that you quote HSBC in your post, in that, since their high-profile US/Mexico problems of a decade ago, their controls are now generally (as unscientifically measured by posts on here) seen as being some of the tightest. Do posters say "it's reassuring to know that HSBC takes security seriously and that my money is safe with them"? Do they ****! There are loads of threads moaning about HSBC's relatively stringent account-opening criteria, their (perceived to be) over-zealous approach to ID verification, their controls over cash transactions in branches, etc, etc. All of these controls are in place to minimise risk but this is inevitably at the expense of customer convenience, so it's not as simple as blaming banks for customers' accounts being emptied if the customers themselves resist or resent the security checks put in place to help protect them!

Thank you eskbanker - you are beginning to uncover for yourself the messes that banks such as HSBC are culturally destined to create. You decry the selectivity of customers complaining on MSE for their lack of praise for the ID messes HSBC create in the name of more stringent security?

Yes, funny that, isn't it? Now since you have brought yourself to look at it and are standing there pointing, can I just for a moment ask you to look at it via the other end of the microscope? Has it occurred to you that what customer reports reaching MSE signify is that banks do not "KYC"? Staff are lost. Courtesy of the banks systems and processes, all the staff can see are 1s and 0s - binary digits. They cannot see through them and distinguish their customers from fraudsters. They are on any given day blindly according fraudsters identical privileges to those they give customers, and blindly applying identical suspicions and restrictions to customers as those that should only be reserved for fraudsters. Civilised society only tolerates such sweeping generalisations, flakey profiling and mistakes in times of war, and then only by government mandate. What banks are doing in peace-time to tricked customers is equally as bad as racial profiling and interning and leaving behind civilian casualties under piles of rubble in war time.

Or do you believe it is perfectly OK for banks to constantly excuse their behaviours by chanting "Don't you know there's a War ON?" Oh wait, banks don't do that do they? No they chant "This is normal and quite proper - it's just that some customers are their own worst enemy"

schiff wrote:

This is an interesting point. As I mentioned earlier I had an online transaction using my Yorkshire Bank credit card that didn't go smoothly, due to 'interference' from the bank. I found myself irritated and frustrated and yet, underneath it all, the bank were 'protecting' me from what they perceived as a possible fraudulent transaction. I only thought of that on reflection afterwards.

Suspected fraud, or suspected money-laundering because of where in the ether you were sending a lot of zero's? Banks are aware that AML legislation bites them hard in certain circumstances but not others. They cover their a$$es not ours, my friend.

eskbanker

peterbaker wrote: »

Thank you eskbanker - you are beginning to uncover for yourself the messes that banks such as HSBC are culturally destined to create. You decry the selectivity of customers complaining on MSE for their lack of praise for the ID messes HSBC create in the name of more stringent security?

Yes, funny that, isn't it? Now since you have brought yourself to look at it and are standing there pointing, can I just for a moment ask you to look at it via the other end of the microscope? Has it occurred to you that what customer reports reaching MSE signify is that banks do not "KYC"? Staff are lost. Courtesy of the banks systems and processes, all the staff can see are 1s and 0s - binary digits.

You're misinterpreting KYC, which is primarily about validating that customers are who they say they are, not knowing them in the sense of the personal relationships of the Captain Mainwaring days! The genie has long since left that particular bottle and won't be returning - as mentioned further upthread there may be small regional building societies for those who have simple requirements and prefer face-to-face contact (and potentially relationships), but it's inherent in a modern banking world characterised by automation, and consolidation into a small number of large players, that there isn't the personal knowledge that you'd apparently prefer. On the flip side, there are of course all the benefits of such automated services, such as 24/7 online banking, fast payments (usually!), low costs, etc....

peterbaker wrote: »

They cannot see through them and distinguish their customers from fraudsters. They are on any given day blindly according fraudsters identical privileges to those they give customers, and blindly applying identical suspicions and restrictions to customers as those that should only be reserved for fraudsters.

I think you're mixing up different scenarios here - if fraudsters gain direct access to bank accounts (without assistance from customers) then this is clearly the bank's responsibility. However, this thread was about customers conducting transactions at the behest of fraudsters (i.e. when 'fooled by cunning con-artists'), so it's still the customer who's interacting with the bank in these circumstances.

peterbaker wrote: »

Civilised society only tolerates such sweeping generalisations, flakey profiling and mistakes in times of war, and then only by government mandate. What banks are doing in peace-time to tricked customers is equally as bad as racial profiling and interning and leaving behind civilian casualties under piles of rubble in war time.

Or do you believe it is perfectly OK for banks to constantly excuse their behaviours by chanting "Don't you know there's a War ON?" Oh wait, banks don't do that do they? No they chant "This is normal and quite proper - it's just that some customers are their own worst enemy"

I think you're getting a bit carried away here, don't you?

peterbaker wrote: »

Suspected fraud, or suspected money-laundering because of where in the ether you were sending a lot of zero's? Banks are aware that AML legislation bites them hard in certain circumstances but not others. They cover their a$$es not ours, my friend.

You're quoting banks having duties to minimise fraud and then you complain when they take actions to do that, you can't have it both ways!

soulsaver

I thought a concise comment may lighten the mood:

Get a room!

eskbanker

soulsaver wrote: »

I thought a concise comment may lighten the mood:

Get a room!

But didn't you know that the evil hotel industry is fundamentally all about ripping off unsuspecting guests so as to make obscene profits? Extortionate rack rates, unreasonable preauthorisation holds on customer money, mortgage required for drinks in the bar, dishonest staff, etc, etc....

peterbaker

eskbanker wrote: »

You're misinterpreting KYC

Nope, I think you are eskbanker. I don't hold you personally responsible for the easy mistake - ever since the acronym KYC fell into common usage at financial institutions, it became another part of the digital trap that banks plunged headlong into. The Know part was reduced almost instantly into a fiercely minimalistic tick box compliance exercise. At some banks, as the questions took so long they bored the prospective customers and depressed sales, FSA then FCA got lobbied to relax the documentary requirement from maybe eight pages to a double-sided sheet :rotfl:

I used the acronym deliberately - you fell into the trap. Know Your Customer is the requirement. I will settle for the common English usage of the word Know rather than the biblical one, although I frequently heard of KYC tick box experts who quickly moved on to lay the ground optimistically for any opportunity in the biblical sense after cherry picking their customers from the queues in the banking hall! These were the same ones who used photocopied KYC forms with most of the boxes pre-ticked. Amazingly, as these were often the ones who had to be ticked off gently for wearing bank name badges with titles like Financial Adviser and Money Advice Expert (which they were able to personally order themselves via the banks stationery supplier!), the performance managers only smiled at the tactics employed because the same sellers seemed to get PPI sold on every loan too! KYC=KPI^2! Watch that seller go :cool::(

I think you're mixing up different scenarios here - if fraudsters gain direct access to bank accounts (without assistance from customers) then this is clearly the bank's responsibility. However, this thread was about customers conducting transactions at the behest of fraudsters (i.e. when 'fooled by cunning con-artists'), so it's still the customer who's interacting with the bank in these circumstances.

I think you are conveniently by-passing all the steps necessary to drain a bank account digitally, and waving your arm most lazily using words like 'assistance from customers' and 'it's the customer who's interacting'.

I think you're getting a bit carried away here, don't you?

The war and peacetime analogy? Is there a war on terror? Sadly whilst many of us thought that was USA getting a bit carried away with that phrase originally, we all seem to accept it can colour our lives now, and banking especially is affected.

Is there a war on cybercrime? I think we the people accept that one quite easily, but banks and bank regulators? I am not sure they want to agree that any war they need to massively rearm for has started there. Again, they'd rather point to unfortunate customers as their own worst enemies.

You're quoting banks having duties to minimise fraud and then you complain when they take actions to do that, you can't have it both ways!

There you are again, commenting from a narrow world mixed up in ideas that life is about ticked boxes or boxes left unticked, i.e. it's about ones and zeros ... influenced yes by fierce regulatory AML imperatives due to the important war on terror, but with no or only light touch imperatives due to any important war on claimed cybercrime conducted as Microsoft Support Scams and the like ... oh so binary, isn't it?

Reminds me of typical privacy settings in mobile Apps (for those clued in enough to go looking round the back to see what is switched on and what is switched off by default)

Imaginary eBanking App Privacy Settings:

• AML tick box compliance ON (cannot be switched off)
• Money Safety Protection - looks to be OFF by default but is greyed out and I can't seem to change it! I think I was expecting it to be automatically included. Anyone know?
• Microsoft Tech Support Scam Compatibility ON by default ... but in very small print below it there is a little warning that says that when set to ON continued use of the App puts my entire life savings at my own risk and when I switch it off, which it seems to accept, as soon as there is an App update, I find it is set back to ON!

Terry_Towelling

meer53 wrote: »

I have never bought insurance from a bank or a packaged bank account as i am old and wise enough to see what is worth it and what isn't. I don't really see how anyone can hold a bank responsible for something a customer makes the ultimate decision on.

Just coming in at a tangent here; The above post seems quite revealing. If a bank worker claims to know better than to purchase certain things from a bank, then that might indicate those products to be poor value. Of course, it could just be that @meer53's circumstances meant the products weren't good value for them at that time.

Once again I am inferring a meaning into what has been written - if I am wrong please say so.

eskbanker

peterbaker wrote: »

Nope, I think you are eskbanker. I don't hold you personally responsible for the easy mistake - ever since the acronym KYC fell into common usage at financial institutions, it became another part of the digital trap that banks plunged headlong into. The Know part was reduced almost instantly into a fiercely minimalistic tick box compliance exercise. At some banks, as the questions took so long they bored the prospective customers and depressed sales, FSA then FCA got lobbied to relax the documentary requirement from maybe eight pages to a double-sided sheet :rotfl:

I used the acronym deliberately - you fell into the trap. Know Your Customer is the requirement. I will settle for the common English usage of the word Know rather than the biblical one

Although your smug self-congratulation is amusing, it's misplaced - my point was (and is) that KYC doesn't entail knowing customers in the traditional sense of a personal relationship that's maintained face to face, i.e. talking about holidays and kids and so on, as would have been the case back in the Captain Mainwaring days.

peterbaker wrote: »

I think you are conveniently by-passing all the steps necessary to drain a bank account digitally, and waving your arm most lazily using words like 'assistance from customers' and 'it's the customer who's interacting'.

I'm not bypassing or waving anything, just highlighting the difference between customers interacting with a bank and fraudsters interacting with a bank. No doubt both happen but they're different, hence me pointing this out in response to your assertion about banks "according fraudsters identical privileges to those they give customers".