Friend Defrauded of Mortgage Deposit

garth549

Depending on the circumstances of the receiving account, its parent bank should have to take responsibility IMO. Especially if the account is newly opened and suddenly receives a large payment that is immediately withdrawn. That has fraud written all over it.

The problem is a lot of fraudsters use unwitting money mules that aren't always aware they're involved in a scam, so the receiving account can be perfectly legit. However in this case there's more chance of freezing and recovering the funds.

Let us know how he gets on. Hope he gets at least some of it back.

LazyT

Weirdly, both his current account and the receiving account are with HSBC, the receiver is in Birmingham.

Chino

LazyT wrote: »

Weirdly, both his current account and the receiving account are with HSBC

That's not weird, just a coincidence.

LazyT

Well - yes. Kinda my point; I wasn't suggesting HSBC were in on it.

HSBC have confirmed there are funds in the other account, and have frozen it - they just can't/won't say how much.

Good news is HSBC are refunding in full and he is now just waiting on Virgin, who have promised an answer by close of play tomorrow, if not today.

A good start, but not there yet.

robatwork

This kind of push payment scam is one of if not the most common way of separating people from large sums of money.

It will be a great test of the new guidelines to see if Virgin pay up as easily as HSBC.

It seems remarkably quick for HSBC to refund - what about the situations where the fraud is actually someone (ie. hypothetically your friend) pretending he'd been defrauded by sending the money to his mate and creating the spoof emails himself....surely the bank would need some time just to investigate it?

eskbanker

robatwork wrote: »

It seems remarkably quick for HSBC to refund - what about the situations where the fraud is actually someone (ie. hypothetically your friend) pretending he'd been defrauded by sending the money to his mate and creating the spoof emails himself....surely the bank would need some time just to investigate it?

Indeed - the code of practice specifies that:

Firms should make the decision as to whether or not to reimburse a Customer without undue delay, and in any event no later than 15 Business days after the day on which the Customer reported the APP scam

so it obviously anticipates an investigation prior to a refund, rather than reimbursing within 24 hours!

Perhaps the fact that HSBC is both the sending and receiving bank has simplified the situation, since this eliminates the need for negotiation and allocation of responsibility between two separate entities, or if sufficient funds have been frozen then there's no reason to delay further....

BrownTrout

Well hope he gets his money back. Luckily HSBC have acted very quickly. I guess given they were the receiving bank has helped a lot

LazyT

Just some closure to this, guys - Virgin came back yesterday morning - refunded the lot, so very lucky indeed.

The Met Police were in touch this morning to say they were dropping the case due to insufficient evidence, despite being supplied with the company's name and the Director (with address in Birmingham).

Lucky boy!

msallen

LazyT wrote: »

The Met Police were in touch this morning to say they were dropping the case due to insufficient evidence, despite being supplied with the company's name and the Director (with address in Birmingham).

What company?