Student daughter scammed out of her loan

Tonton

My 20 year old daughter has just had £3k stolen from her by scammers. They pretended to be from HMEC and said a warrant was out for her arrest and she needed to make payment immediately. She was terrified and transferred her loan on her Halifax account. We’ve reported it to the police and she reported to Halifax but they say she may not get her money back as she confirmed the payment. She is devastated. She just got her loan and this has cleaned her out.

bradders1983

Oh for crying out loud.

Tonton

I meant to type HMRC of course.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

I suggest staying on at School is not going to prevent her from losing money to scammers! Not what you want to hear, but these things have been going around for years, from the Microsoft engineer saying your amazon isp account is going to be transferred to a safe bank account with the building society! Part of life's rich tapestry. Next time she will be wary?

[Deleted User]

In all honesty she won’t get it back because she voluntarily sent the payment. She’s going to have to move on. 

Is this a university/college student? She may be able to apply for their hardship funds. Although not getting 3k from it she may get some sort of help. 

soolin

I do have some sympathy when I read that an elderly confused or Mentally vulnerable person has fallen for this obvious scam, however OP you must be asking yourself what exactly does your daughter do when you are not around that made her seriously consider that she was going to be arrested?  It’s all over social media with people laughing about how obvious it is and it’s just one in a long line of phone calls trying to get money for nothing.

OP I am so sorry but I agree with the others, I think her loan has gone. I would be having a serious discussion with her though about what she thinks she does that would warrant her arrest! 

tacpot12

All the above seems a little hard; I expect I would have been equally scared at her age, but really she should have been more aware of people calling out of the blue and asking for money, and called you for advice. I had to assist a friend in their 50s who was talking to these scammers when I called to visit, so it can happen to anyone if you let your guard down. 

However, Halifax will have required her to confirm that she was not transferring money to someone new for some urgent reason as it was very likely to be as scam. This should have caused her to stop and realise what was going on. The only thing the banks can do more than this is delay the payment, which would interrupt the economy greatly. I don't think she will get this money back. All you can do is use this to sit her down and ensure that she learns from this. I would ask her why the Halifax warning did not trigger her to call you for advice. If the Halifax warning was not present, she might have some comeback on Halifax, but I can't believe that their systems don't do this. (I bank with Santander, Lloyds, HSBC, NatWest and Smile and all provide these warning and require the user to click to say that they have considered whether they are being scammed. ) 

Barny1979

Not that young and naive at 20 years old, as others have said, what does she get up to which might make her think she could be fined? Best hope is set up a crowd-funding page and go to the local papers with her best Compo face on.

Manxman_in_exile

Barny1979 said:

Not that young and naive at 20 years old, as others have said, what does she get up to which might make her think she could be fined? Best hope is set up a crowd-funding page and go to the local papers with her best Compo face on.

I doubt either she or her parents would want to publicise this locally...

olgadapolga

My 20 year old student daughter is, unfortunately, very naïve, somewhat immature and far too trusting. She also suffers from mental health problems which could lead to her being convinced by a call from "HMRC" so I could quite easily see her falling for this type of scam. I have tried my best to drum into her brain that these scams do exist and if she's unsure then to call either her dad or myself. Hopefully she will if she ever gets contacted by one of these people.

OP,  your daughter must be so upset about this (as are you, I have no doubt); being a student at the moment is not the experience it's meant to be. I have no helpful advice to help you resolve this issue but I hope that something can be done so that your daughter can make it through to her next loan installment.

Silvertabby

OP - be sure to warn your daughter about that other well known student scam.  The one whereby students are asked to allow another person use of their bank account, in return for a percentage of the laundered money.