Facebook messenger scam/ Monzo bank

Davidnotmark

Hello everyone, 

I’m wondering if anyone has some advice or help with what has happened to me over the last week. 

Last Tuesday I received a message from my niece on Facebook messenger, saying that she had a direct debit that was due the next day that she had forgotten about, and could I please send her some cash to cover it until payday.  As I regularly communicate with her on facebook messenger, and because I have sent her cash before I didn’t really think anything of it – I’m quite close with my niece, so it didn’t seem that unusual. As a result I sent her two payments – one for £285 and another for £225 for a total of £510.

 

After I had sent it I wanted to check she had received it and check she was ok so I tried calling her – she later told me she wouldn’t have picked up as I called from a withheld number (I am a teacher and during lockdown used my personal phone to call parents so had to change it to withheld). When I did get through, it became clear she hadn’t asked me for some money and that her account had been hacked and scammers had taken my money. She managed to get in touch with friends who had also been messaged – indeed one was just about to click send when she finally got through – others who don’t know her as well as me thought it was suspicious and also then began to call her to check.

 

We googled what to do and it became clear that we had to get in touch with my bank which is Monzo and explain what had happened, as well as get in touch with action fraud to register a case, both of which I did.

 

Monzo got in touch to ask things like how close am I to the person I sent money to? Was this a normal method of communication with her? Did I try and verify the transaction to make sure it was genuine before I sent etc.. I explained that it was my niece, who I’m close to and that it was our regular method of communication – I sent screen shots to prove this. I sent screen grabs of the phone call I made after I had sent the transaction. After a bit of messages back and forth they sent a message saying that they didn’t think I’d taken enough steps to check who I was paying and what for and therefore wouldn’t be refunding me any money.

 

I pointed out to them that this is not some email scam from some company asking me to wire money – this was my niece (a close family member), who I regularly communicated with on that platform, and it was her actual account. I also sent Monzo screen grabs of an email she got from facebook telling her that her password had been changed.

 

In addition to this, I also pointed out to them that previous times I had transferred money from there, if the account name was even one letter out e.g. if I wrote Katir instead of Katie then it wouldn’t be able to go through, so I am unsure why it allowed the transaction to complete. I explained that as a result of this I feel like they didn’t do enough to stop this from happening.

 

They have said that if there is any money left in the account that I sent the money to that I will receive it back, but that if it had been withdrawn from an ATM then there would be little they could do. I pointed out that if it had been withdrawn from another UK bank account then the bank should have the scammers ID, as the other bank is FSSC regulated, and so should require someone to show some ID when opening the account. If it has been wired onwards then surely the bank could investigate where it has gone.

 

In addition to this, I know that in May 2019, many UK banks agreed to voluntarily refund victims of scams as you can see here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48385426  - whilst Monzo didn’t sign up to that, they did agree to join the spirit of the code as if they were fully signed up to protect people, as you can see here https://twitter.com/monzo/status/1133392963562803205?lang=en

 

So I would like to know where do you think this leaves me? Do you think there is any way I could get the money back, do I have a case to go further with this? I have asked Monzo for their official complaints process, before going down the financial ombudsman route if that doesn’t work, but I am unsure how likely that would be to get my money back. I really can’t afford to lose £510 this close to Christmas, and my niece is beside herself with worry and feels responsible for what has happened with her account getting hacked. I’ve pointed out to Monzo that to them I am a real person who genuinely is a victim of scammers, but so far they seem unwilling to help.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope you can help me out with this matter.

Zanderman

Duplicate of thread here:  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6212297/facebook-messenger-scam-monzo-bank 

mattyprice4004

I don't see why they should lose £510 because you fell for a scam; surely it would have been sensible to call the relative directly given how prevalent this type of scam is.

Money_Grabber13579

Who did you transfer the funds to? If you’d transferred her funds before, then presumably the bank account details would have been saved in your online banking and so, if it was sent to this account, how did they get it from there? Was her bank account compromised too?  If they asked you to transfer it to another bank account, did that not ring alarm bells?

KatrinaWaves

Money_Grabber13579 said:

Who did you transfer the funds to? If you’d transferred her funds before, then presumably the bank account details would have been saved in your online banking and so, if it was sent to this account, how did they get it from there? Was her bank account compromised too?  If they asked you to transfer it to another bank account, did that not ring alarm bells?

All this is covered in the thread already

[Deleted User]

Does the payee show as verified in Monzo? If not, you will have had a warning before sending the payment. If it does show as verified then report that to the payee bank because they have managed to set up an account in your niece's name and maybe some ID fraud is also happening.

Facebook has 2FA (two factor authentication) and so do most email providers so there is no excuse for this type of thing anymore. 

If your niece hasn't implemented 2FA on her important accounts then get her to do it now. Have you done the same with your email and Facebook to avoid this scam happening to others?

It is really simple to prevent these scams before they happen, hopefully many will read this thread and think twice about sending payments and also secure their email and social media.

Money_Grabber13579

KatrinaWaves said:

Money_Grabber13579 said:

Who did you transfer the funds to? If you’d transferred her funds before, then presumably the bank account details would have been saved in your online banking and so, if it was sent to this account, how did they get it from there? Was her bank account compromised too?  If they asked you to transfer it to another bank account, did that not ring alarm bells?

All this is covered in the thread already

What a helpful comment...

it’s not covered in this thread, but I now see it is in the duplicate thread, which I didn’t read due to it being...a duplicate. This thread just needs deleted.

KatrinaWaves

Money_Grabber13579 said:

KatrinaWaves said:

Money_Grabber13579 said:

Who did you transfer the funds to? If you’d transferred her funds before, then presumably the bank account details would have been saved in your online banking and so, if it was sent to this account, how did they get it from there? Was her bank account compromised too?  If they asked you to transfer it to another bank account, did that not ring alarm bells?

All this is covered in the thread already

What a helpful comment...

it’s not covered in this thread, but I now see it is in the duplicate thread, which I didn’t read due to it being...a duplicate. This thread just needs deleted.

Apologies I didn’t intend to offend. I had just read through the other thread that’s all. You points are covered but it doesn’t make it make that much more sense! 

Money_Grabber13579

KatrinaWaves said:

Money_Grabber13579 said:

KatrinaWaves said:

Money_Grabber13579 said:

Who did you transfer the funds to? If you’d transferred her funds before, then presumably the bank account details would have been saved in your online banking and so, if it was sent to this account, how did they get it from there? Was her bank account compromised too?  If they asked you to transfer it to another bank account, did that not ring alarm bells?

All this is covered in the thread already

What a helpful comment...

it’s not covered in this thread, but I now see it is in the duplicate thread, which I didn’t read due to it being...a duplicate. This thread just needs deleted.

Apologies I didn’t intend to offend. I had just read through the other thread that’s all. You points are covered but it doesn’t make it make that much more sense! 

None taken and apologies for my reaction being over the top.

I think I just need to go to sleep.

soolin

I will close this if I can as there are more responses on the duplicate thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6212297/facebook-messenger-scam-monzo-bank