Facebook Messenger Scam/Monzo Bank

dazzaofdagenham

I can see how the OP has been fooled into sending some cash to someone he thought he needed it..
let the rest of us take this as a lesson.....verify these situations.

Eco_Miser

Takmon said:

Eco_Miser said:

whitesmith said:

If you set up a brand new payee on Monzo, then you would have had to input the name if the payee (your niece's name). Monzo would have checked, and then informed you that this account you are trying to send money to was not in that name. At this point, you are warned, and then asked to cancel, or proceed anyway knowing the account names do not match. What did you do in response to this message?

Many names are not unique. The scammer could have set up a bank account in a common name, using genuine details, then sought out every person on Facebook with that name, including the OP's niece, done a little hacking and sent messages to everyone on all the contact lists.

If this speculation is anything like correct, there would have been no warning message.

It's not possible to hack into any Facebook account that someone chooses. If there was a vulnerability that allow accounts to be hacked then this would be effecting millions of accounts and it would be reported on the news like all big hacks. What has actually happened (like in most cases) is that the person will have been tricked into giving out their password in a phishing attempt. 

Yes I should have said "done a little phishing".

Of course, it takes time before a hack is discovered, and even longer before it hits the news, so that is still a possibility.

born_again

dazzaofdagenham said:

I can see how the OP has been fooled into sending some cash to someone he thought he needed it..
let the rest of us take this as a lesson.....verify these situations.

And tell relatives. Tough....

These scams have been doing the rounds for years.

Yahoo_Mail

Eco_Miser said:

whitesmith said:

If you set up a brand new payee on Monzo, then you would have had to input the name if the payee (your niece's name). Monzo would have checked, and then informed you that this account you are trying to send money to was not in that name. At this point, you are warned, and then asked to cancel, or proceed anyway knowing the account names do not match. What did you do in response to this message?

Many names are not unique. The scammer could have set up a bank account in a common name, using genuine details, then sought out every person on Facebook with that name, including the OP's niece, done a little hacking and sent messages to everyone on all the contact lists.

If this speculation is anything like correct, there would have been no warning message.

Well, we don't even know what message the OP got.  All they say is that they were "unsure why it allowed the transaction to complete."  Of course, CoP does not stop you from sending the money, you are free to send it if the names don't match.

So what message did the OP get exactly?  I'm beginning to think it was something other than "Names match" and they were assuming the bank would block the transaction if it wasn't a match, which of course isn't how it works.

Tragen

Davidnotmark said:

So how can I find out if they did indeed set up an account in her name? Monzo should be able to find that out? If they have haven't, and Monzo have sent the money to an account without a name attached to it, is that negligent on their part?

What bank is the account you sent money to with? you can tell by the sort code. You should report the account to that bank and to the police.

mab3000

Tragen said:

Davidnotmark said:

So how can I find out if they did indeed set up an account in her name? Monzo should be able to find that out? If they have haven't, and Monzo have sent the money to an account without a name attached to it, is that negligent on their part?

What bank is the account you sent money to with? you can tell by the sort code. You should report the account to that bank and to the police.

Monzo would have reported this to the receiving bank as part of the process trying to recover the money from the scam account. The OP should report this to Action Fraud as I believe someone else has already mentioned. 

eskbanker

mab3000 said:
The OP should report this to Action Fraud as I believe someone else has already mentioned. 

No harm in doing this out of altruism but it should be understood that it's a one-way process for the potential future benefits of others, rather than something that'll actually help those who've already been defrauded, as explained at https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/what-is-action-fraud

When you report to us you will receive a police crime reference number. Reports taken are passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. Action Fraud does not investigate the cases and cannot advise you on the progress of a case.

When considering the likelihood of follow-up investigation by banks or law enforcement agencies, it's probably worth bearing mind that on average there were over 500 such APP scam payments reported every day last year....