Nationwide, Team Viewer fraud, ombudsman

DCFC79

OP you might see my previous reply as being harsh but its how I see it, I dont see anyone else can be blamed.

colsten

antrobus wrote: »

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.

The emphasis there is on what you do.


You can pay some money to an existing payee. Or you can allow the third party to remotely operate your PC to send that money.
It would also be you who would generate the security code that is needed to set up any new payee - unless you have given the other party your debit card and your PIN.

As I said before, the use of Teamviewer in this scam is a total red herring. The root cause is that the OP's wife, or the OP if he acted without the knowledge of his wife, was complicit at every stage of the process.

colsten

zimou13 wrote: »

We are sorry to hear that you have been contacted in this way. TeamViewer strongly condemns any criminal activity and we are appalled by the behaviour of such people and their actions towards TeamViewer users.

who is "we"? Are you a representative of TeamViewer? In which case, you need to declare your affiliation.

However, as I have already explained, the "involvement" of TeamViewer, or any other remote access software, in this scam is a complete red herring.

its_all_over

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.

It would be beneficial to explain how the transfer to an unknown beneficiary was carried out, as others have said, it shouldn’t be possible to set up a new beneficiary without the cooperation of your wife to authorise the transfer.

sheramber

Why would you want to give a friend access to your what you are doing on your computer?

Uxb

Team viewer is regularly used to help out relatives who have no idea what they are doing on a computer and get it into a frightful mess by those other family members who are fully IT literate.
Team viewer is an excellent tool in the right hands and is used in its corporate version by many IT help desks.
As I recall in the free version the end user/client has to give over a voice phone a password for each new session started which is displayed to pass on when you start up the end client to allow the remote controller person access to their PC.
I'm sure those who use in regularly on here (they mostly inhabit the techie sub-forum) would be able to fill in the details.

colsten

Uxb wrote: »

As I recall in the free version the end user/client has to give over a voice phone a password for each new session started which is displayed to pass on when you start up the end client to allow the remote controller person access to their PC.

That's one option. The other is to set it up with a permanent password. Having a permanent password doesn't stop you from giving the occasional user a one-off password.

But we digress. The issue in hand isn't the use of Teamviewer but the negligence of the account holder.

JGUK

As per above;

There are draft proposals now to support incidents like this.

Note the word draft though. Also at the moment only voluntary.

Might be worth taking it up with FOS though if its now at that stage, or maybe kick it back to Nationwide.

https://appcrmsteeringgroup.uk

https://appcrmsteeringgroup.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/APP-Scams-SG-Draft-Code-FINAL.pdf

WilburW

Nationwide paid out compensation in full last week + 8% interest + additional funds (around 3k) which was stolen in same incident. I took the case to FOS after the bank refused to even consider restoring the funds. The ruling was in my favour. The investigator provided a detailed and nuanced assessment - the fact that nationwide failed to block or request confirmation of the 4 transactions within 30 mins 23.30 Saturday night for 10k total value was given weight. The investigation was done during lockdown (Feb-May this year) and communication was always good and detailed.

The case was helped by providing detailed evidence including bank statements, phone logs, WhatsApp history and very clearly stating what happened and the outcome I was looking for. After the FOS accepted the case, I contacted FOS by phone every two months for an update. As it was advanced fraud they took their time (approx two years) and I eventually raised a service complaint against FOS with intention of getting a decision from the Independent FOS. The case was assigned at the same time so I didn't need to take this further. With some bias due to my family having our savings back, I'm very happy with how FOS handled the case as it was clear that the investigator was very diligent and objective.

WilburW

The attack was the type of hack called 'social engineering' and the  'pretexting' example from the site below is descriptive of some of what happened: https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-awareness/5-social-engineering-attacks-to-watch-out-for/