My dad has been scammed out of £19,000

AWOL84

Hello people,
After a little advice and guidance. I received a phonecall this morning from my elderly mother concerned about a phonecall that my dad was currently on. She said that the person on the phone was ringing about trying to stop money leaving my dads account. Obviously instantly alarm bells started ringing and I told them to hang the call up and turn the computer off and I whipped round there as quick as I could.
Turns out they had managed to get my dad to install team viewer on his PC and my dad then accessed his bank account and from there they changed the sort/account of an old payee that my dad hadn't used for around a year and they wired £19,000 out.
I called the bank immediately which would have been about half hour after we realised what had happened and the first lady I spoke to said there was a note on there that the fraud team had rejected the payment. She then transferred me to the fraud deaprtment who told me that despite the note being on there the transacton had gone through somehow and the money left the account. The investigations team would now investigate and contact us within 5 days with an answer.
So my question here is how likely is it that my dad gets the money returned? I have done all I can to warn them about scammers and how they operate on the phone so I'm as angry with my dad at the moment as I am the scammer who took the money.

AWOL84

May add that the bank is Natwest

Chino

My concern would be why - unless you have a Power of Attorney - Natwest was prepared to talk to you about someone else's account.

AWOL84

Chino said:

My concern would be why - unless you have a Power of Attorney - Natwest was prepared to talk to you about someone else's account.

I called Natwest and they asked to speak to my dad to give permissions to discuss with me.

MalMonroe

Chino said:

My concern would be why - unless you have a Power of Attorney - Natwest was prepared to talk to you about someone else's account.

How is that helpful? 

If the OP was at his/her parents' house and they phoned the bank and the bank was given verbal authorisation by the OP's father, that is why they would talk about someone else's account. That happened to me. I was able to talk to my mum's bank because she was there in the room with me and gave me permission.

MalMonroe

The fact that there was a note on the account not to allow the withdrawal will go a long way to helping you recoup your dad's money. They ignored their own instruction. 

I'm more concerned about why and how anyone was allowed to withdraw such a large sum, electronically, in just one transaction. 

Let's hope they do a full and thorough investigation after they've returned your Dad's money. 

If they don't return it, you have a very good case to take to the Financial Ombudsman here.

robatwork

Almost certain he'll get the money back.

Let them do the investigation. If it doesn't go well for him, get him to complain formally. Once you've exhausted this route and got a deadlock letter, you can get him to go to the FO.

Yahoo_Mail

MalMonroe said:

The fact that there was a note on the account not to allow the withdrawal will go a long way to helping you recoup your dad's money. They ignored their own instruction. 

I'm more concerned about why and how anyone was allowed to withdraw such a large sum, electronically, in just one transaction. 

Let's hope they do a full and thorough investigation after they've returned your Dad's money. 

If they don't return it, you have a very good case to take to the Financial Ombudsman here.

The note did not say not to allow it to go through, it said it had been rejected.  That's not the same thing.

AWOL84

Thank you all for your comments so far. I've been reading about Authorised Push Payment Protection which Natwest are part of so it's rekindled some hope that they will be refunded. My concern is they'll rule that he was negligent.
They've said they'll be in touch within 5 days so will just have to hang tight for now.

Yahoo_Mail

AWOL84 said:

Thank you all for your comments so far. I've been reading about Authorised Push Payment Protection which Natwest are part of so it's rekindled some hope that they will be refunded. My concern is they'll rule that he was negligent.
They've said they'll be in touch within 5 days so will just have to hang tight for now.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/files/232299/DRN0175768.pdf

A scam involving TeamViewer. Slightly more complicated I suspect but the FOS found in the customers' favour and ordered the money to be refunded.  I don't expect Natwest to refuse to return the money given that decision but can't see the bank winning with the FOS if they do.

Mickey666

MalMonroe said:

The fact that there was a note on the account not to allow the withdrawal will go a long way to helping you recoup your dad's money. They ignored their own instruction. 

I'm more concerned about why and how anyone was allowed to withdraw such a large sum, electronically, in just one transaction. 

Let's hope they do a full and thorough investigation after they've returned your Dad's money. 

If they don't return it, you have a very good case to take to the Financial Ombudsman here.

Agreed.  I’ve never been able to transfer more than £10k in one transaction, but perhaps different banks have different limits (I’m not with NatWest).  Also, Isn’t 2FA supposed to help stop this sort of thing (though not infallible)?  Perhaps NatWest doesn’t use that either?

Best of luck to the OPs Father though.