Scam help please

elliep_2

Sorry, I don't know if I'm on the right board here.

I had a tradesman do some work for me last November, and had been communicating with him by email.

I received an invoice from his email address for the expected amount soon after the work was finished and paid it on the same day in mid December.

This morning (early May) he phoned me to say that his email was hacked and the invoice wasn't from him and the payment details were incorrect so the money had gone elsewhere. He stated that he hadn't sent an invoice yet (6 months after the work!!) and that's why he hadn't noticed the missing payment.

I've obviously reported it to my bank but they aren't hopeful of retrieving the money after all this time. I'd have stood a better chance if it was picked up quicker.

I don't really want to pay the tradesman again, the bill was almost £1.2k that I can't afford to pay twice.

But, seeing as I never paid the actual tradesman, am I still liable for the whole thing? Or does the fact that he failed to keep my data secure and was hacked, plus the timescale involved, and the fact that I paid "someone" change anything?

I'm a decent person and don't want the tradesman to not be paid for all the work he did, and have considered agreeing to pay 50%. But before having that conversation I'd like to know if that's me being kind, or asking him for a kindness.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or information.

kazwookie

elliep wrote: »

Sorry, I don't know if I'm on the right board here.

I had a tradesman do some work for me last November, and had been communicating with him by email.

I received an invoice from his email address for the expected amount soon after the work was finished and paid it on the same day in mid December.

This morning (early May) he phoned me to say that his email was hacked and the invoice wasn't from him and the payment details were incorrect so the money had gone elsewhere. He stated that he hadn't sent an invoice yet (6 months after the work!!) and that's why he hadn't noticed the missing payment.

I've obviously reported it to my bank but they aren't hopeful of retrieving the money after all this time. I'd have stood a better chance if it was picked up quicker.

I don't really want to pay the tradesman again, the bill was almost £1.2k that I can't afford to pay twice.

But, seeing as I never paid the actual tradesman, am I still liable for the whole thing? Or does the fact that he failed to keep my data secure and was hacked, plus the timescale involved, and the fact that I paid "someone" change anything?

I'm a decent person and don't want the tradesman to not be paid for all the work he did, and have considered agreeing to pay 50%. But before having that conversation I'd like to know if that's me being kind, or asking him for a kindness.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or information.

You meet to have a face to face meeting with the tradesman, and ask for his bank accoutn details direct from him face to face.

You need to compare these with the account / sort code you did pay the money to.

You need to ask him why it has taken him six months to contact you.

comeandgo

No it's not you "being kind". You are owe him the full amount. You should tell the bank you have been neglectful and paid a scammer.

elliep_2

comeandgo wrote: »

No it's not you "being kind". You are owe him the full amount. You should tell the bank you have been neglectful and paid a scammer.

I paid a scammer / hacker who send me an invoice that looked genuine, from his genuine and tested email account.

I have told the bank the full story and they are doing their best to get the money back but it's been 6 months because the tradesman didn't notice for that long. Any tradesman I've dealt with before would have chased the debt months ago if it hadn't been paid.

Fair enough if the law says I still owe the tradesman, but please don't make it seem like I'm the only one in the wrong here.

Rainbowgirl84

How did the tradesmen know you'd been invoiced by a scammer?

elliep_2

Rainbowgirl84 wrote: »

How did the tradesmen know you'd been invoiced by a scammer?

He invoiced another customer for work done at a similar time as mine and was told by that customer they'd already paid. This alerted him to the problem and he began to catch up on his paperwork and call his clients. I was the 3rd affected client when he called me, I don't know how many more he identified.

supersaver1000

I've heard of a similar situation, where a trader had their email account hacked and the customer paid according to the details on the scammers email.

The customer didn't have to pay a second time as it was held to be the trader's fault for failing to have a secure email system.

There is also likely a data breach, if the scammers gained access to emails containing customer detail. All businesses are now under strict requirements according to GDPR in the way they collect, store and keep customer data secure.

clearancer

"In good faith, the customer completes an instruction to pay the money to the genuine builder by name but giving the fraudster’s account number and sort code.

When the bank receives the customer’s instruction to pay, it transfers the £25,000 to the fraudster’s account. The latter then withdraws the money and disappears.

On discovering what has happened, the customer claims the money from the bank. But the bank says it paid the correct account identified only by its number and sort code. It did not check the name of the account holder. Banking practice in the UK and EU does not require it to do so. Thus the bank denies liability for the loss.

Almost certainly, the customer was unaware of the limited checking process undertaken by the bank. Of all the information he supplied to the bank, the one piece he regarded as important was the name of the genuine builder. Why was it not checked?
The bank has to act in accordance with the Payment Services Regulations. These require the bank to comply with its customer’s instructions to pay to the account which has been unambiguously identified in the payment instruction.

The banking system has been designed so the combination of sort code and account number relates to only one account. Hence the practice of only checking the account number and sort code.

In this case, however, the name of the account or the name of the account holder would have been different from the genuine account and its holder. There is thus an inconsistency in the information provided by the customer and, if the bank had checked the name, it would have discovered that. In that situation, as a minimum, the bank should have referred back to the customer. If it had done so, the fraud would have been revealed and foiled.

It seems a small thing for the bank to do – to check the consistency of all the information it has asked for and which has been supplied to it by its customer.
The Payment Systems Regulator, which has the duty of enforcing the regulations, should act to make all banks carry out proper checks to ensure consistency in all the information at the bank’s disposal. Relying just on the account number and sort code is not good enough, particularly because this kind of fraud is now so common.

The bank is also under a positive common law duty to protect its customer from fraud. In this case, the bank had information which should have put it on enquiry as to whether the correct account to be credited was the genuine builder’s or the fraudster’s. The bank should have checked. If it had done so, the fraud would have been prevented. The bank was therefore liable."

https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/issues/29-june-2017/peter-hamilton-liable-online-banking-scams/

elliep_2

Thanks Clearancer, that almost perfectly describes what happened in my case. Do you know of any cases where that argument has successfully been used to get the bank to pay out? I have to go out now but will follow that link and see what I can learn when I get back.

Thanks

sheramber

Was the scam invoice the same as the genuine one?

sheramber

The fraudster could have opened an account with the builder's name.