Scammed....

Ciprico

An elderly friend of mine was scammed and sent a couple of thousand pounds to  the scammer in India.
He had never sent any money abroad before.
Don't banks do checks for unusual activity....
First Direct said they will investigate and may 'do something'..

Of course we understand he essentially gave the money away but should the bank have questioned the transfer.
I've had my bank call me to confirm payments of a lot less suspicious nature...

DireEmblem

I'm sorry, but maybe there needs to be a compus mentas test for people of a certain age, or if you havent setup or initiated a new transfer in a while, a text back asking if you are aware what it is for and is it valid?

colsten

123mat123 said:

An elderly friend of mine was scammed and sent a couple of thousand pounds to  the scammer in India.
He had never sent any money abroad before.
Don't banks do checks for unusual activity....
First Direct said they will investigate and may 'do something'..

Of course we understand he essentially gave the money away but should the bank have questioned the transfer.
I've had my bank call me to confirm payments of a lot less suspicious nature...

I can't be certain as I have never sent money abroad through FD, but I am pretty sure they 'questioned' the transfer. By asking, for instance, "are you sure you want to send the money"?


You posted this on the Savings and Investments board. Has your friend been talked into some investment? How does he know the money went to India?

tacpot12

First Direct will have questioned the transfer. They will have asked about its purpose, as they have obligations under the money laundering regulations. An unusual transaction will have prompted additional questions. 
How did your friend send this money?

• Did they pay to a UK bank account by a direct transfer ?
• Did they pay by credit card? 
• Did they pay by international bank transfer of Rupees to an Indian Bank account and incur a currency conversion charge?

If he is embarrassed about this, he may not have told you the full story. First Direct staff are trained about vulnerable customers and scams especially as they are so prevalent at the moment. Unfortunately there is no fool like an old fool. A old chap I knew ended up leaving his house to his Indian 'girlfriend' even though she had never been to the UK. His family weren't best pleased. 

naedanger

123mat123 said:

An elderly friend of mine was scammed and sent a couple of thousand pounds to  the scammer in India.
He had never sent any money abroad before.
Don't banks do checks for unusual activity....
First Direct said they will investigate and may 'do something'..

Of course we understand he essentially gave the money away but should the bank have questioned the transfer.
I've had my bank call me to confirm payments of a lot less suspicious nature...

Yes, they should have questioned the transfer and almost certainly did.

I have certainly faced a lot of questions (clearly designed to catch different types of scam) over recent bank transfers and even had to watch a long video. And while the amounts were larger than a few thousand, I would not have raised any flags as being either vulnerable or suspicious. I am almost surprised an elderly person is able to move a large part of their money even for a genuine reason.

It will be interesting to hear what First Direct say, assuming your friend tells you.

Ciprico

We're not really sure what happened and the individual involved doesn't 'remember' and gets stressed if pushed for details.
We think he used the card reader to transfer from his current account. Possibly the scammer talked him through the process. The individual thought he was paying for an antivirus sw upgrade, only later the same day did he realise 2k had gone. He suffers from bad dementia so hard to really know what happened. FD told him the money had gone to India and have flagged him as a vulnerable customer, though its not clear what that means...
He instigated the transaction so its unclear how he first made contact with the scammer.
This seems to happen a lot.
The scammer has returned for seconds but we think/hope the individual didn't engage.
I appreciate this isn't an investment issue but I am hoping to tap into the helpful and knowledgeable user base on here. Feel free to ignore...

naedanger

123mat123 said:

We're not really sure what happened and the individual involved doesn't 'remember' and gets stressed if pushed for details.
We think he used the card reader to transfer from his current account. Possibly the scammer talked him through the process. The individual thought he was paying for an antivirus sw upgrade, only later the same day did he realise 2k had gone. He suffers from bad dementia so hard to really know what happened. FD told him the money had gone to India and have flagged him as a vulnerable customer, though its not clear what that means...
He instigated the transaction so its unclear how he first made contact with the scammer.
This seems to happen a lot.
The scammer has returned for seconds but we think/hope the individual didn't engage.
I appreciate this isn't an investment issue but I am hoping to tap into the helpful and knowledgeable user base on here. Feel free to ignore...

My guess is they tricked him into giving the scammer access to his account via remote access software and then got him to move the money to another account. However I would have thought FD should have flagged a new payee, and an immediate transfer by an elderly customer as a transaction that required a detailed call back.

Based on what he said he was told by the scammer I think (even if the scam was different to my suspicion) that if the bank don't refund him then it would be worth complaining to the Ombudsman. (Unless there is a lot more to it e.g. if £2k to a new payee is not an unusual transaction for him.)

Username999

Jim Browning is fighting these Scammers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO9mWvJAugQ

cattie

As he has dementia & is vulnerable, wouldn't it be better if somebody had power of attorney to deal with & oversee his financial affairs? 

An elderly neighbour of mine, then in the early stages of dementia, was scammed out of £10k by somebody who phoned her & then came to the house for the money once it was withdrawn from the bank. She has no family, but the son of a friend of hers now has power of attorney to safeguard her from any financial scams of this sort.

Albermarle

Recently I set up a new payee on my Nationwide current account . There must have been at least five different warnings and I had to twice use my card reader . Then I made a payment of £1250 and a similar process again . An hour later a call from Nationwide with a long list of questions about the payment.
They seem to have gone from one extreme to the other .

tacpot12

naedanger said:

I have certainly faced a lot of questions (clearly designed to catch different types of scam) over recent bank transfers and even had to watch a long video. And while the amounts were larger than a few thousand, I would not have raised any flags as being either vulnerable or suspicious. I am almost surprised an elderly person is able to move a large part of their money even for a genuine reason.

I tend to agree - even if the customer says the reason is genuine, the banks should be refusing to do accept the instruction when they think payment is suspicious. The banks should be warning customers that insist on paying scammers that they will be reported to the police for funding organised crime. This gentleman does require someone to take control of his money before he loses it all.