Nationwide, Team Viewer fraud, ombudsman

WilburW

Long story short, someone hacked a friends' facebook account and based on building up trust got my wife to install Team Viewer on our laptop and login to our bank accounts. £7.7k was gone in minutes (from our joint accounts, including a 4k credit card cash transfer to pay for a house extension) with no chance of reversing the transaction due to the funds getting sold as bitcoin via an intermediary.

Anyhow - it turns out when I called Nationwide to follow up on the Monday that they were very aware of Team Viewer and it being used to steal money from their customers' accounts, and in a follow up call the person on the other end said that it 'wouldn't be fair to Team Viewer' to warn their customers against this software; indeed none of their various warnings target remote desktop software like Team Viewer.

The final letter from Nationwide on this included a note to say that they'll 'look into' warning their customers about Team Viewer (but wouldn't refund). The full case is now with the ombudsman due feedback to me in 4 weeks.

Things I found out:
1: Always make sure everyone in the household are aware of how to be safe online, what to do and not do.
2: The ombudsman portal for submitting a case works quite well - even if I had to try twice.
3: To be extremely careful with online banking. There's very little framework around protecting users against mis-use. I believe the FCA is due to publish reviewed guidelines around this to banks soon.

Question:
Anyone else with experience of taking their bank to the ombudsman out there? would be interested in hearing about it.

takman

ivanp wrote: »

Long story short, someone hacked a friends' facebook account and based on building up trust got my wife to install Team Viewer on our laptop and login to our bank accounts. £7.7k was gone in minutes (from our joint accounts, including a 4k credit card cash transfer to pay for a house extension) with no chance of reversing the transaction due to the funds getting sold as bitcoin via an intermediary.

Anyhow - it turns out when I called Nationwide to follow up on the Monday that they were very aware of Team Viewer and it being used to steal money from their customers' accounts, and in a follow up call the person on the other end said that it 'wouldn't be fair to Team Viewer' to warn their customers against this software; indeed none of their various warnings target remote desktop software like Team Viewer.

The final letter from Nationwide on this included a note to say that they'll 'look into' warning their customers about Team Viewer (but wouldn't refund). The full case is now with the ombudsman due feedback to me in 4 weeks.

Things I found out:
1: Always make sure everyone in the household are aware of how to be safe online, what to do and not do.
2: The ombudsman portal for submitting a case works quite well - even if I had to try twice.
3: To be extremely careful with online banking. There's very little framework around protecting users against mis-use. I believe the FCA is due to publish reviewed guidelines around this to banks soon.

Question:
Anyone else with experience of taking their bank to the ombudsman out there? would be interested in hearing about it.

What are you going to the ombudsman for?

Surely it's common sense to not let someone have control of your computer while logged into online banking?

I can't see how the bank have done anything wrong.

[Deleted User]

This is no fault of the bank - you have no case to go to the Ombudsman

JuicyJesus

!!! wrote: »

This is no fault of the bank - you have no case to go to the Ombudsman

Technically, anyone who feels like their bank has unfairly dealt with their complaint has a case to go to the Ombudsman.

Whether a complaint has any prospect of success is another thing. I have absolutely no idea how anyone could be persuaded to let someone else view what they were doing on their computer, and then log on to their online banking. Why would you do that!?

SnowTiger

!!! wrote: »

This is no fault of the bank - you have no case to go to the Ombudsman

Maybe, however the FOS does make strange decisions:

One customer called Brian contacted the Ombudsman service after his bank refused to refund him £7,000 in a text message scam.

Brian received a message he thought was from his bank and unwittingly gave out his security details and passcodes.

As a result, the bank said he had been grossly negligent and refused to refund the money.

After reviewing the details, the Ombudsman decided it was a sophisticated fraud, and that the fraudsters had gained Brian's trust and therefore his actions were reasonable.

They forced the bank to reimburse Brian's £7,000.

I don't think it's been mentioned much here, but from September 2018 the Payment Systems Regulator has introduced a new industry code for dealing with 'authorised push payment' scams.

I'm not sure if inviting a friend (fake or not) to watch you log in to your bank account via TeamViewer would be considered a push payment scam. But it's probably no worse than replying to a text message with your online banking details. :dance:

colsten

Something doesn't stack up.

The money was either sent to an existing recipient, or a new recipient had to be set up before a payment could be made to that recipient.

In the first scenario, the recipient will be known to the OP's wife, so could have been reported to ActionFraud straight away. She could also have asked Nationwide to ask for the money back.

In the second scenario, Nationwide would have requested a security code which can only be generated by somebody who has both, the OP's wife's debit card and her PIN. New payees cannot be set up without that security code.

In other words, the OP's wife seems to have willingly participated. The use of Teamviewer in the fraud is a red herring.

colsten

ivanp wrote: »

........ with no chance of reversing the transaction due to the funds getting sold as bitcoin via an intermediary.

How do you know what the payee did with the funds? Do you / your wife know the payee?

Shakin_Steve

The smell of bovine excrement is overwhelming.

DCFC79

The bank aren't at fault here, they carried out the instructions your wife asked them to do, the blame if any should be aimed at your wife for installing Teamviewer and sending the funds.

deadendwaterfall

DCFC79 wrote: »

The bank aren't at fault here, they carried out the instructions your wife asked them to do, the blame if any should be aimed at your wife for installing Teamviewer and sending the funds.

When pigs start flying, the company behind Teamviewer will be posting them a compensation cheque for sure.

antrobus

SnowTiger wrote: »

Maybe, however the FOS does make strange decisions:



I don't think it's been mentioned much here, but from September 2018 the Payment Systems Regulator has introduced a new industry code for dealing with 'authorised push payment' scams.

I'm not sure if inviting a friend (fake or not) to watch you log in to your bank account via TeamViewer would be considered a push payment scam. But it's probably no worse than replying to a text message with your online banking details. :dance:

It isn't.

An APP scam is when someone persuades you to send money to a fraudster's account in the belief that the account is really that of your solicitor or whatever.

Team Viewer is a tool that allows remote access to your computer. You get a phone call from someone purporting to be BT or Microsoft who claims that your computer is infected with viruses etc. But if you download Team Viewer and give them access to your box they will 'fix' the problem for you.

Once they have access they can see everything you do.