My dad has been scammed out of £19,000

born_again

k12479 said:

born_again said:
2. They picked a random payee, that would appear not to be a personal payee. (easier to scam the money back to another account) when it is a company.... 

It all now make perfect sense

Are you saying it'd be easier to scam a company than an individual? Not sure I'd agree with that.

Still doesn't seem an obvious strategy to me. Here the scammer has to:
1. Convince person A to make a transfer, or gain access to do it themselves
2. Hope it doesn't get flagged by the outgoing or incoming bank
3. Track down person/company B
4. Convince B to make a transfer
5. Hope it doesn't get flagged by the outgoing or incoming bank

If the scammer can overcome 1 & 2, then the overpayment-type scam tacked on just reduces the probability of success significantly. Also I note the OP managed to track down the payee who was contacted by his bank, but there's no mention of him being contacted by anyone requesting an erroneous payment be refunded.

Think about it.
You receive a payment from anyone. Does it show their sort/acc details? That would be a NO.
So if it was sent to a family member odds on they will have made a previous payment and simply return using the old details. Anyone asking them to change that should set alarm bells ringing.
Now take a company. Someone rings up saying I'm Mr sent you 19K in error. Can you send it back please. To confirm it was me here is the time & date it was sent and any other details they may ask for if they can trace the customer from previous payment (remember scammer will have all these, as they have had full access to the account via team viewer). So given they know they were not due the amount, they say OK can we have the account details. Bang 19K sent to scammers account.
Easy as that.

sheramber

Would you not ask the bank to refund the payment back to where it came from?

colsten

sheramber said:

Would you not ask the bank to refund the payment back to where it came from?

I would definitely ask for the money to be removed from my account. Whether they'd return it to where it came from would be up to the bank to decide, based on information they, and the sending bank, have about the sending account.

k12479

born_again said:

k12479 said:

born_again said:
2. They picked a random payee, that would appear not to be a personal payee. (easier to scam the money back to another account) when it is a company.... 

It all now make perfect sense

Are you saying it'd be easier to scam a company than an individual? Not sure I'd agree with that.

Still doesn't seem an obvious strategy to me. Here the scammer has to:
1. Convince person A to make a transfer, or gain access to do it themselves
2. Hope it doesn't get flagged by the outgoing or incoming bank
3. Track down person/company B
4. Convince B to make a transfer
5. Hope it doesn't get flagged by the outgoing or incoming bank

If the scammer can overcome 1 & 2, then the overpayment-type scam tacked on just reduces the probability of success significantly. Also I note the OP managed to track down the payee who was contacted by his bank, but there's no mention of him being contacted by anyone requesting an erroneous payment be refunded.

Think about it.
You receive a payment from anyone. Does it show their sort/acc details? That would be a NO.
So if it was sent to a family member odds on they will have made a previous payment and simply return using the old details. Anyone asking them to change that should set alarm bells ringing.
Now take a company. Someone rings up saying I'm Mr sent you 19K in error. Can you send it back please. To confirm it was me here is the time & date it was sent and any other details they may ask for if they can trace the customer from previous payment (remember scammer will have all these, as they have had full access to the account via team viewer). So given they know they were not due the amount, they say OK can we have the account details. Bang 19K sent to scammers account.
Easy as that.

Possibly. But it lacks the thing that makes scams effective - fear and/or greed. The business overpayment scam works because if you don't cooperate you fear that deal falling apart, ditto personal overpayment scams because you want your car, or whatever, sold. A random business receiving unsolicited funds is under no pressure to act or to do so quickly, something scams rely on.

Dr_Crypto

Thanks for the update. 

Let’s assume that the Dad’s card and reader are NOT compromised. 

I can think of a few possibilities:
1. The scam went wrong and the plan was to get the Dad to change the payee details.
2. The record guy is innocent and part 2 of the scam was to contact him and get him to send the £19k somewhere. Unclear then why this hasn’t happened. 

3. The record guy is involved. But why then is he cooperating and not running with the £19k 

jonesMUFCforever

Dr_Crypto said:

Thanks for the update. 

Let’s assume that the Dad’s card and reader are NOT compromised. 

I can think of a few possibilities:
1. The scam went wrong and the plan was to get the Dad to change the payee details.
2. The record guy is innocent and part 2 of the scam was to contact him and get him to send the £19k somewhere. Unclear then why this hasn’t happened. 

3. The record guy is involved. But why then is he cooperating and not running with the £19k 

3. Cold feet - guilt? Perhaps he was/is been coerced in some way?

Tragen

Another way the scammers might have gone is to then call the father again, posing as the bank, trying to resolve his dispute, and ask him for details of the payee - such as their name and phone number. From that, they can then call the recipient, posing as the bank and then try to get them to "return" the money to their own account.

AWOL84

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth said:

AWOL84 said:

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth said:

AWOL84 said:

Apologies for the late response, had a million and one things on.
Right so the bank got in touch with us on Wednesday via email. I'm absolutely staggered that given my elderly father has just lost £19,000 they didn't have the decency to call rather than send a nameless e-mail providing their update.
The email said that they'd investigated "thoroughly" and because my dad had updated details via the use of a card reader that they'd been unable to refund.
By this point my head was just about to explode with rage/anger so I called Natwest to tell them once again that a card reader HAD NOT BEEN USED. I told them surely they have the capabilities to check if a card reader had been used? He said they do have the capabilities. They said they'd raise an appeal for us and we'd hear in five days.
After this I decided to try and find payee that my dad had paid back in November whose details Natwest told us had been updated. Dad could only remember part of his companys name and after a solid two hour spell of checking Google I managed to find the company and speak to the man in question.
To my utter amazement the man said he'd received the £19,000 and was only made aware after his own bank called to say whether he was expecting the payment. The bank informed him they'd withold the funds and then speak to the senders bank.
So much for Natwests "thorough" investigation eh? I called them back to provide the update and after spending nearly two hours on hold finally spoke to someone who wasn't helpful at all. I asked why wasn't we notifed about this? I asked could they call the payees bank to confirm the funds are being held and he said they could not.
The following day I called Natwest back again and again spent close to two hours on hold before speaking to someone which led to me being directed to about four different departments until I actually spoke to someone competent. He informed me that on their system he can Natwest had raised this with the payees bank a few days previous which left me further enraged as to why no one had told us this before?
All in all it seems to be a happy ending as it would appear the funds will be coming back to my dad although Natwest still haven't confirmed. They're saying they've contacted the other bank and they have upto 30 days to respond (quite why it takes this long I do not know).
The service received from Natwest has been the worst I've ever experienced with any company in my entire life and as soon as this is resolved we will be moving my dads bank account.
I'm angry with myself for not trying to find the payees details sooner as it would have saved a lot of stress.
I did ask Natwest the question as to what the scammers hoped to achieve by sending it to a payee already setup and they informed me that it's quite common that funds are sent in this way and the scammers would find the payees details to then contact them to say money has been sent in error can you wire it back to this account etc.

So from this, it appears that your father did indeed send funds to a known payee? Then it would not need a card reader to authorise. Only by luck on finding the previous payee, that your father had set up, are you able to locate the missing £19,000. Hopefully this will be returned to his account.

This begs the question, I have said previously that your father had paid a known payee!
This suggest to me now, that you father is not able to carryout his normal banking and would require some other person to do it for them? This should resolve the issues in the future.

I am afraid, your father was not scammed?

As for OP, I would get some power of attorney to run your father's money affairs.

I said way back on the thread that the bloke he paid was someone legitimate back in November of last year. He doesn't know him but paid him to transfer a vinyl record over onto CD for him.

The scammer sent them the funds to clearly try and obtain back from him after.

I shall repeat!

YOUR FATHER WAS NOT SCAMMED. HE WAS CONFUSED AND SENT THE MONEY. 

YOU NEED POWER OF ATTORNEY TO RUN HIS MONEY AFFAIRS!

End Of!

What do you mean he wasn’t scammed?? What on earth are you talking about?

MaxJones

I feel truly sorry for

is there anyway you can get details of the account who received the funds?

might be worth sending the boys round

burner04

MaxJones said:

I feel truly sorry for

is there anyway you can get details of the account who received the funds?

might be worth sending the boys round

On the lash again Max?