Victim of romance fraud

sheramber

So how much of her pwn money   did your mother lose?  

Cardriver45

sheramber said:

So how much of her pwn money   did your mother lose?  

It was around £4250 over the 11 months. After she paid the first amount she said to him that she couldn't afford anymore as she didn't have any more money. So when he realised that she didn't have much money my Mum thought that if he was a scammer that would be the end of it. But he came back really apologetic about asking and said don't worry about it as he had friends he had known since school that he could ask to lend him the money. He said that as he was stuck out there he couldn't open an account himself as he didn't have the documents that was why he needed someone to transfer the money for him. 
So the amount she paid him came from small amounts over that time from her wages.

Thrugelmir

Cardriver45 said:

We feel the bank, Natwest, has let my mother down as twice they froze her account and then unfroze her account again and let her continue after saying they had reviewed the account. They asked her about it and she told them that she had met the suspect and that they both had lost their partners and she relayed the story the suspect had told her and what the suspect had told her to say. She explained that she was transferring money that his friends were paying into her account and buying cryptocurrency to pay for the suspect's repairs on the house he was trying to sell and for living costs whilst he was staying in South Africa. The bank even suggested adding the suspect's name onto her account so he could have a debit card sent to him to use. 

Sounds as if there was an in depth investigation going on behind the scenes. Your mother isn't going to be the only person caught up in a very sophisticated operation to legitimise and anonymise proceeds of crime, most likely from drug sales.

Out of interest. Why didn't your mother add him to the account? 

Cardriver45

Thrugelmir said:

Sounds as if there was an in depth investigation going on behind the scenes. Your mother isn't going to be the only person caught up in a very sophisticated operation to legitimise and anonymise proceeds of crime, most likely from drug sales.

Out of interest. Why didn't your mother add him to the account? 

That's what we thought at first when the police came round. But the police were called because the family of a lady, who the suspect had told my mother was his relative, who was also being tricked by the suspect into paying money into my mother's account, called the police after she paid most of the amount over several months. So it turns out he was basically doing the same to others as he was doing to my mother. Really sad as well as apparently she lost her husband in Feb and met the suspect on a bereavement site. The police said she is really ill now. They are angry and are intending to sue her bank, but I guess they'll just say it was her fault for paying it. Though from what the police say she lost even more money than just what went through my Mum's account. 
So it looks like the other so-called friends were in fact other poor victims like my mother. My Mum tried giving the names of people who had been paying money into her account in case they are still being tricked, but the police weren't interested. They just said contact action fraud or call 101.

My Mum did say to him about being added onto the account, but he just made up a story about his lawyer advising him against it because his card would likely be stolen when it was sent out there as that was common in South Africa.
He replied that although he thought that was a great idea, he wouldn't be able to withdraw the money to pay the contractors who were supposedly working on the house, that's why he needed it in cryptocurrency as there was only a small amount he could draw  

ItsComingRome

There's little chance of this going anywhere, the payments were largely low enough to fly below the radar and the mother appears to have been convincing enough that the bank believed the story.

They're not mind readers, nor should they be expected to be such.

Even if the FOS finds failings in the bank's processes, they won't force the bank to reimburse the customer as the customer voluntarily made the payments and the bank acted on the customer's instruction.

£200 compo and job done.

Cardriver45

ItsComingRome said:

There's little chance of this going anywhere, the payments were largely low enough to fly below the radar and the mother appears to have been convincing enough that the bank believed the story.

They're not mind readers, nor should they be expected to be such.

Even if the FOS finds failings in the bank's processes, they won't force the bank to reimburse the customer as the customer voluntarily made the payments and the bank acted on the customer's instruction.

£200 compo and job done.

Though surely the bank should have picked up on so much money being spent on cryptocurrency? And regular payments over 8 or 9 months of £5k-15k suddenly?
That was completely out of character and one of the amounts was £15k. She's never had any significant amount paid into her account before and then suddenly all this money kept being paid in and out for the first time in her banking history. The bank only finally picked up on it as another victim's family called the police. 

[Deleted User]

kaMelo said:

Having re-read the OP, .I somehow missed this bit regarding transfers from compromised accounts, amounting to over £100,000 passing through the account and onto other accounts?

With that information frankly I'd consider any outcome that doesn't result in the account closed. a CIFAS marker and police investigation (in any combination) as a very positive outcome.
There have been many posts on here who have had that happen to them for much much less.

As others have alluded to, she seems to have been able to satisfy the bank at each opportunity that the transactions were genuine and didn't have actual vulnerable markers - I'm not sure what else you expected the bank to do?

I do think that there is danger that NatWest place a CIFAS maker or simply close her accounts. 

Cardriver45

Deleted User said:

kaMelo said:

Having re-read the OP, .I somehow missed this bit regarding transfers from compromised accounts, amounting to over £100,000 passing through the account and onto other accounts?

With that information frankly I'd consider any outcome that doesn't result in the account closed. a CIFAS marker and police investigation (in any combination) as a very positive outcome.
There have been many posts on here who have had that happen to them for much much less.

As others have alluded to, she seems to have been able to satisfy the bank at each opportunity that the transactions were genuine and didn't have actual vulnerable markers - I'm not sure what else you expected the bank to do?

I do think that there is danger that NatWest place a CIFAS maker or simply close her accounts. 

Do you mean if we complain they would as they have unfrozen her account now. They've even given her a victim support contact at the bank now and the victim support person apologised for the fact she felt they let her down.

Cardriver45

Its probaly best for me to at least get the sar as suggested so I can at least see what was actually said by the bank and my mother. As at the moment she can't really remember and then I will have a better idea.

eskbanker

Cardriver45 said:

eskbanker said:

I'd suggest that it would make sense for her to submit a Subject Access Request to the bank at the earliest opportunity, seeking copies of the relevant call recordings and all other disclosable data relating to their handling of this.  Chances are they won't be able to share some of the more sensitive data that may be covered under crime investigation exemptions, but once you've had a chance to trawl through the records, it should assist with determining if they've fallen short....

Would I just want the phone recordings and disclosable data from when her card was stopped and accounts frozen and she spoke to the fraud department or do I need to ask for everything from when the first transactions started when she initially started being scammed?

Firstly, unless you now have power of attorney, she needs to ask for this.

In terms of what to ask for, it depends on how you anticipate constructing some sort of case against the bank, in that if you're accusing them of failing her then you need to be absolutely clear in what they didn't do that they should, and vice versa, and, more importantly, there needs to be substantiation of this - a general feeling that, with hindsight, there were warning signs in terms of unusual transactions is unlikely to be enough, but specific references to regulations, codes of conduct, etc, will need to be sourced, and the relevant actions weighed up against the bank's actual obligations.

The mere fact of transactions proceeding despite being unusual isn't in itself a breach of such duties, since if banks were to be held accountable for failing to stop transactions that didn't fit previous patterns, that would very quickly become unwieldy, so it'll be quite a high bar to prove any sort of negligence on their part for that, but I'm assuming that you're more likely to be focusing on her apparent ability to satisfy their enquiries once their suspicions had been aroused, and hence the recommendation to get hold of call recordings, rather than relying on your mum's recollection of what was said.

Edit: you seem to have reached a similar conclusion while I was typing that!