Bank Transfer Scam

MoJoeGo

born_again said:

Batesy1976 said:

I'm not suggesting they are the police, but plenty of companies do police their transactions (PayPal, all the banks via chargebacks etc.)

In fact the problem is that banks are now policing transactions by taking their customers at face value.

If they don't want to get involved with these disputes they need to stay out of them.

How can the banks stay out of them. But I can tell you they would love too. All that money not being refunded to people who have fallen for scams that are well published. Would make the shareholders very happy
But the FCA etc have decided that the banks have to take some responsibility and deal with the problem. So they can not stand back & say tough.

Chargebacks are not policing transactions. These are card regulations & in no way related to banking payments.

A bank will take a customers word in the 1st instance, just the same as the police would. Only when investigated will any problems be highlighted. Any customer trying to scam the system. Runs the risk of their accounts being closed down & a CIFAS fraud marker. 

Agreed - the amount of money that banks have to spend on systems, policies, procedures and people to implement and maintain regulatory controls around payments is eye watering.

Imagine if none of that was needed, and it was purely a case that they did what the customer wanted. 

Victim - "Waah, I've lost my life savings to a Nigerian scammer"
Bank - "well I'm sure ActionFraud has a hotline to Interpol and can sort it all out for you"

What could possibly go wrong 

Frankly amazed we still have free banking in this country with the level of regulation in financial services. Mind you, it's helped pay the wife and I a very decent salary for many years so not complaining!

eskbanker

MoJoeGo said:

Imagine if none of that was needed, and it was purely a case that they did what the customer wanted. 

Victim - "Waah, I've lost my life savings to a Nigerian scammer"
Bank - "well I'm sure ActionFraud has a hotline to Interpol and can sort it all out for you"

What could possibly go wrong 

The post-CoP version is pretty much there already though if paying online:

Victim - "Waah, I've lost my life savings to a Nigerian scammer"
Bank - "did you ignore the warning that you weren't paying who you thought you were?"
Victim - "er, yes, doesn't everyone?"
Bank - "well I'm sure ActionFraud has a hotline to Interpol and can sort it all out for you"

MoJoeGo said:

Frankly amazed we still have free banking in this country with the level of regulation in financial services. Mind you, it's helped pay the wife and I a very decent salary for many years so not complaining!

But it must be said that the major banking groups all continue to turn in sizable 9/10-digit profits, albeit they're down on previous years and will often be earned well away from UK retail banking....

born_again

eskbanker said:

But it must be said that the major banking groups all continue to turn in sizable 9/10-digit profits, albeit they're down on previous years and will often be earned well away from UK retail banking....

True. Vast majority comes from the far east. The UK contribution comes from getting rid of branches/staff & farming the work to Global partners. Who are also not exempt from losing their jobs as a cheaper source of staff is found elsewhere.
One reason working from home is now the flavour many UK banks are working hard to keep going. Where we are that means the group can get rid on one massive building and just run the other.
Which is great. Would rather work from home & spend the extra 2 hours not stuck in the car getting too & from the office.

Time will come when there are no more cost cutting available. Joe Public beware.....

Jewelscollectingdust

So another day at branch to try and pay my House Bulidings and Contents insurance -  the direct debit was due to go out yesterday but got blocked. I also have a bank loan with bank and payment due out in 2 weeks - I didn’t even go there with the loan as just paying the overdue house contents became a nightmare. 

Buildings and Contents policy is owned and sold to us by the bank themselves. 

Tried to pay cash at counter for it - cashier declined to take payment as apparently it’s not possible to take cash for this type of policy - they need debit card payment which are all locked up - I am praying our new Starling account cards arrive soon !!!

Luckily - the same member of staff we saw and helped us yesterday noticed our distress and came to help - we ended up back in the little customer room again with her while she figured out a way we could pay it.

I thought it was only us ringing from home trying to deal with this and getting hour long holds to reach various departments who couldn’t help to be put back on hold again - then over again in a fruitless loop - but even internally branch staff are having to use the same system  - maybe slightly quicker but not by much. 
We were In branch with her for 2 1/2 hours going round in circles from one fraud dept to  another fraud dept trying to get updates on any progress 
The only thing I would say is the lady herself was head and shoulders above the organisation she was representing   - she just couldn’t have tried harder to try and help us get it sorted out - but beyond that the system she was up against was an utter shambles with the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing - Our confidence in the system is just on the floor. I sensed her frustration in the system as much as ours. 

In the end we managed to pay full balance of policy by credit card. They decided to accept it by that method so that’s one less bill for us to have to worry about. 

We are still told case with back office - branch lady herself chasing it daily for us and the case now marked up as urgent for them to review 

Rather ominously the branch staff member was told by Fraud dept that when the decision is made about our accounts - there are two courses of action 

They will either unfreeze all the accounts or close all the accounts.

I asked what happens to the funds within our accounts if they close them - she replied as far as she understood they would be returned to us 

Ed-1

Which bank is it?

Jewelscollectingdust

I had not named here - but will do so now
Halifax Bank 

Ed-1

Jewelscollectingdust said:

I have not named it yet - but will do so now
Halifax Bank 

Thought it might be as they do good Home Insurance rates.

born_again

Jewelscollectingdust said:

We are still told case with back office - branch lady herself chasing it daily for us and the case now marked up as urgent for them to review 

Rather ominously the branch staff member was told by Fraud dept that when the decision is made about our accounts - there are two courses of action 

They will either unfreeze all the accounts or close all the accounts.

I asked what happens to the funds within our accounts if they close them - she replied as far as she understood they would be returned to us 

She can chase as much as she likes. It will not get it sorted any faster. She should also know which fraud team deals with what, it will be have been in the procedures she should have been following. While it makes her look good & like she is helping, she is not really. Just wasted 2 1/2 hours of your time.

We have a stance that no one gets bumped up the lists. It's unfair on everyone else. Even our complaints team know we will not.

colsten

born_again said:

 Just wasted 2 1/2 hours of your time.

And the distracted the fraud teams from getting on with their caseload.

Jewelscollectingdust

So a further update this morning 

I did the usual log onto the account to determine if there has been any progress and whether the accounts would let me do anything 
I have been doing this a couple of times daily -  attempting to try and move a small amount of money from one account to another - just to see if the transactions would go through 
For the last week - I have been getting continual error messages and block

This morning the transfer immediately went  through so I then checked every account we have  
All now Unfrozen and working normally 

It’s been 9 days since original freeze and 7 days since all the other accounts with same bank followed suit and were also frozen. 

No message from the bank - or any form of explanation. 

I checked to see if anything had been done with the payment that has caused the problem - it still sits in my account 

Obviously I am happy and very relieved that’s it’s been resolved in the best possible way but whole experience has left me feeling very frightened and bewildered 

So can anybody speculate what the heck has gone on behind the scenes here.

Also 

In light of this experience can we also talk “Best Practice” for receiving bank transfer payments 
I don’t want to ever put myself in this position again