How do fraudsters get away with it?

Ash_Pole

I was reading about the ex-lawyer who was scammed out of 200k+ by being persuaded to transfer money out of her bank account. The article said about £1m is lost through fraud every day.

I don't understand how the people who receive the funds get away with it. The last time I opened a bank account I had to jump through hoops to confirm my identity. And if the fraudster does manage to set up a fake bank account I'm assuming they need to move the money on as soon as possible, do they just go into a branch and withdraw 200k in cash somehow?

I hasten to add, I'm not looking for advice! Just curious as to why it's so hard to catch these people. 

xylophone

This presumably.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/beatthescammers/article-9281605/How-highly-sophisticated-scam-cost-Catriona-241-000.html

Prism

In most cases the individual jumps through most of those hoops for them and basically hands over the money. Its the same with most attacks on company networks and accounts protected by passwords. The attacker persuades the individual to hand over their details.

RG2015

xylophone said:

This presumably.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/beatthescammers/article-9281605/How-highly-sophisticated-scam-cost-Catriona-241-000.html

Forgive me if I missed it,  but I cannot see anything in this article explaining how the scammer is able to open a bank account and move large sums of money, without the bank seeing anything suspicious. I thought that was what ID checking and KYC was all about.

Update: Apologies @xylophone, I thought you were answering the OP's question. Thanks for pointing us the the source of the OP's question.

ivormonee

There are so many sophisticated ways that scammers dream up to scam others. They get very creative and find ways to "beat the system" which is always playing catch-up. Specifically regarding bank transfers in your OP, they can set up bank accounts by using fake ID or real bank accounts that they have taken over, bought illegally or hacked. There's no end to it. And people, quite often generally intelligent and with-it people, fall for the scams too. You mentioned an ex-lawyer, presumably to infer a general level of intelligence and yes, they too can fall for a scam. Once scammers successfully get the initial transfer done they move the money out into another account straight away and the link is broken, the scammers cannot be traced and more often than not they get away with it.

nyermen

With mule accounts - where people are "persuaded" to let money go through their accounts, they can then use those accounts that are already verified.  There are a few posts about people who discover CIFAS markers after they've allowed this, and then say its unfair that they're basically blocked from banking for 6 years, unfortunately this is a big reason why.
Still dont understand why COP (confirmation of Payee) isn't now in place properly and more seriously enforced.  Currently I think you can override big difference, but my view is if you do, the payment should be delayed and checked if over 10k (the usual AML limit).

RG2015

In answer to the OP's question, it does appear that ID checking and attempts at KYC are not working very well. Either the legislation is ineffective or the banks' implementation of these measures is ineffective.

jimjames

RG2015 said:

xylophone said:

This presumably.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/beatthescammers/article-9281605/How-highly-sophisticated-scam-cost-Catriona-241-000.html

Forgive me if I missed it,  but I cannot see anything in this article explaining how the scammer is able to open a bank account and move large sums of money, without the bank seeing anything suspicious. I thought that was what ID checking and KYC was all about.

Update: Apologies @xylophone, I thought you were answering the OP's question. Thanks for pointing us the the source of the OP's question.

You don't need to open a bank account when there are enough people believing that they've been offered a job to receive payments from people and to forward them on.

RG2015

jimjames said:

RG2015 said:

xylophone said:

This presumably.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/beatthescammers/article-9281605/How-highly-sophisticated-scam-cost-Catriona-241-000.html

Forgive me if I missed it,  but I cannot see anything in this article explaining how the scammer is able to open a bank account and move large sums of money, without the bank seeing anything suspicious. I thought that was what ID checking and KYC was all about.

Update: Apologies @xylophone, I thought you were answering the OP's question. Thanks for pointing us the the source of the OP's question.

You don't need to open a bank account when there are enough people believing that they've been offered a job to receive payments from people and to forward them on.

True, but I don't believe that is the scenario the OP is asking about.

LHW99

RG2015 said:

In answer to the OP's question, it does appear that ID checking and attempts at KYC are not working very well. Either the legislation is ineffective or the banks' implementation of these measures is ineffective.

There seem to be a lot of issues with the payee checking for online payments - seems there are some banks where either they haven't fully implemented it, or their system doesn't latch in with some of the others, so the payee checking fails even when you know it should (eg between your own accounts)

RG2015

LHW99 said:

RG2015 said:

In answer to the OP's question, it does appear that ID checking and attempts at KYC are not working very well. Either the legislation is ineffective or the banks' implementation of these measures is ineffective.

There seem to be a lot of issues with the payee checking for online payments - seems there are some banks where either they haven't fully implemented it, or their system doesn't latch in with some of the others, so the payee checking fails even when you know it should (eg between your own accounts)

Yes, the banks are struggling with CoP and KYC appears to be causing many innocent customers to have their accounts blocked.

I have always been vigilant and always guarding against complacency. I certainly would never rely on the banks to have my back.