authorised push payment scam

Biscuit101

I have been a victim of an authorised push payment scam. It was a fake fitness company pretending to offer online classes. I managed to  get the money back as my bank was signed up to the Authorised Push Payment Scam Code. I contacted Action Fraud with all the details - surprisingly there isn't a place to upload the message correspondence. Action Fraud have said there are no grounds for investigation which is ridiculous. However, I can see the online scam site and the scammer are still active.

The sham company is registered to Companies House  with the address 20-22 Wenlock Road which I now know is infamous for phantom companies.

Has anyone had this experience? I don't understand why Action  Fraud have refused to get involved - the scammer is still scamming! Who do I refer this to so they can shut this scam down? Please direct me to the post if something like this has already been posted. Thanks.

Sandtree

Where financial institutes are involved the generally approach appears to be that the police allow the bank/insurer etc to investigate and they then pass to the police the cases that they think are of sufficient severity/size etc for the police to take action.

I am a little surprised that the bank actually classified it as APP from what you say as it normally requires for the scammer to deceive you about who they are (the classic fake call from your "bank" telling you to move your money to a safe account because a fraud attempt is in progress). On the surface from what you say it was a straight forward "no intent to supply" fraud unless they were claiming to be David Lloyds or some other large gym group.

The reality of finite budgets and the bank being the real victim is that many low level frauds aren't prosecuted.

Biscuit101

Sandtree said:

Where financial institutes are involved the generally approach appears to be that the police allow the bank/insurer etc to investigate and they then pass to the police the cases that they think are of sufficient severity/size etc for the police to take action.

I am a little surprised that the bank actually classified it as APP from what you say as it normally requires for the scammer to deceive you about who they are (the classic fake call from your "bank" telling you to move your money to a safe account because a fraud attempt is in progress). On the surface from what you say it was a straight forward "no intent to supply" fraud unless they were claiming to be David Lloyds or some other large gym group.

The reality of finite budgets and the bank being the real victim is that many low level frauds aren't prosecuted.

Thank you for your response, this has been helpful. The unfortunate thing is that I can tell that the scammer is scamming many people out of a couple of 100s of pounds each time. So it's adding up for the scammer but not enough each time for banks to take it anywhere it seems... Very unfortunate.

Sandtree

Biscuit101 said:
the scammer is scamming many people out of a couple of 100s of pounds each time. 

But this is in part the problem/consideration... how much have you lost? You say your bank refunded you and so they are the victims not you.

Its similar to the idea that insurance fraud or shoplifting is victimless crime. I am not claiming these companies are altruistic and considering their losses against the impact to the public purse but there is a cold pragmatism. My ex used to work in counter policy fraud for an insurer and, in my opinion, you get odd "pub brokers" who take cash from their customers and buy policies from us using their credit cards. They have broken a series of laws around both fraud and insurance regulations but 9 times out of 10 they just block the credit card from our payment system rather than passing it to the police.

sheramber

 Trading Standards? You need to go through CAB.