Conveyancing fraud

Blari538

Hello,
I am writing regarding a recent horrendous experience we have had whilst attempting to purchase a property in Glasgow.
We were the victims of a fraud involving a hack on our solicitor's email. The faudsters intercepted the conversation and posed as our solicitor for days prior to the transfer of funds. The email font and the solicitors banner were all very convincingly copied. They instructed us to transfer the money for the purchase of the property to an account in our solicitors name, which we duly did. After a couple of days our solicitor phoned to say they had become aware of the hack and that the money had been stolen by the fraudsters.
We were obviously devastated and are now anxiously awaiting news from the bank's investigation, but that takes 15 working days to complete.
I wanted firstly to make people aware that this is happening (apparently ever more frequently ), and to ask if anyone has had experience of this and could offer advice as to what they did to try and recover the money.

Saga

This is well known, Friday Afternoon Fraud.

Mutton_Geoff

Blari538 wrote: »

Hello,
I am writing regarding a recent horrendous experience we have had whilst attempting to purchase a property in Glasgow.
We were the victims of a fraud involving a hack on our solicitor's email. The faudsters intercepted the conversation and posed as our solicitor for days prior to the transfer of funds. The email font and the solicitors banner were all very convincingly copied. They instructed us to transfer the money for the purchase of the property to an account in our solicitors name, which we duly did. After a couple of days our solicitor phoned to say they had become aware of the hack and that the money had been stolen by the fraudsters.
We were obviously devastated and are now anxiously awaiting news from the bank's investigation, but that takes 15 working days to complete.
I wanted firstly to make people aware that this is happening (apparently ever more frequently ), and to ask if anyone has had experience of this and could offer advice as to what they did to try and recover the money.

In the opening dialogue with your solicitors, did they not warn you of potential fraud and highlight the fact you should ignore any changes to bank account details etc? I know many solicitors highlight this fraud early on so people are at less risk of falling for it.


I appreciate this doesn't help you at this stage, but proves the fraud does exist and serves as a warning to others.


Were the bank details changed in the fraudsters email? I'm guessing this is how it was done?

jimbog

A well documented fraud. Hope it all works out OK for you

eddddy

As you may know, since May 2019, a number of banks have signed up to a voluntary code of practice for 'Authorised Push Payment' scams - like the scam you have been a victim of.

If your bank signed up, it may improve your chances of getting your money back.

Some details:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48385426
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2019/05/more-protection-for-money-transfer-scam-victims-from-today/

gardian8

My solicitor would not release bank details via email at all due to this becoming more common. Really hope you get sorted asap, good luck

AdrianC

gardian8 wrote: »

My solicitor would not release bank details via email at all due to this becoming more common.

The problems aren't the solicitor doing anything.

The problem is somebody else entirely pretending to be the solicitor.

This scam's been around for years. It's been covered widely in the press, on the TV and radio, and online. Simple answer - if you get an email saying "Hey, there's a change in the place for you to transfer a vast, life-changing amount of money to", don't take it at face value...

Pick the phone up and CHECK.

hazyjo

For future readers of this thread, always ring your solicitor to confirm details, or transfer £1 first and check with them that it has arrived.


Do not (obviously) ring the number given in any email. Make sure you know their actual number and ring that.


As above, this type of fraud is very well documented.

ToadsFriend

So sorry to hear about this and really hoping you get all your money back and they catch the robbing scumbags. So sad!

Blari538

Thanks everyone.
I'm fairly up with financial issues but this is not one I'd heard of previously. It transpired our solicitors were also unaware of previous cases. We did not receive any warnings prior to the hack that this could be a problem. We've since read of the banks' code and our bank is one of those that has signed up. This is our main hope of resolution.

AdrianC

Blari538 wrote: »

It transpired our solicitors were also unaware of previous cases.

I find that the single most astonishing thing so far.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/21/couple-lose-120000-email-hacking-fraud-legal-sector

https://www.todaysconveyancer.co.uk/partner-news/fraudsters-hacked-emails-solicitor-stole-340000-property-sale/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/static/connected-families/conveyancing-email-scam-hackers-steal-house-deposit/

https://www.birdandco.co.uk/site/blog/conveyancing-blog/how-to-avoid-conveyancing-fraud

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/another-homebuyer-loses-67k-solicitors-fail-warn-email-fraud/

https://www.todaysconveyancer.co.uk/main-news/bbc-radio-4-looks-again-at-bogus-solicitor-scams/

https://www.osborneclarke.com/insights/authorised-push-payment-fraud-who-pays/

etc etc etc etc