Victim of romance fraud

Cardriver45

eskbanker said:

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!

Is this correct for my Mother's SAR request, please?

Dear Sir or Madam

Subject access request ( Data Protection Act 2018 / General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) )

[Your full name and address, any previous address/names and any other details to help identify you and the data you want.]

Please supply the data about me that I am entitled to under data protection law relating to myself.

I request copies of all call recordings of phone conversations made by myself on the dates of 4th December 2020, 20th January 2021, 23rd July 2021 and 24th July 2021.

If you need any more data from me to confirm my identity, please let me know as soon as possible. It may be helpful for you to know that data protection law requires you to respond to a request for data within one calendar month.

If you do not normally deal with these requests, please pass this letter to your Data Protection Officer, or relevant staff member. If you need advice on dealing with this request, the Information Commissioner’s Office can assist you. Its website is ico.org.uk or it can be contacted on 0303 123 1113.

Yours faithfully

md258

I'd change this paragraph to be "including" these dates, just in case there are others that you've missed.

I request copies of all call recordings of phone conversations made by myself on the dates of 4th December 2020, 20th January 2021, 23rd July 2021 and 24th July 2021.

Brie

If at any point you get proof of your mother saying she "met" (in person or online) this person and they had both suffered bereavements that in itself should signal potential fraud.  I know that people do genuinely meet in this way but it is such a common thing for fraudsters.  Consolation is a common and well know fraudster tactic.

eskbanker

md258 said:

I'd change this paragraph to be "including" these dates, just in case there are others that you've missed.

I request copies of all call recordings of phone conversations made by myself on the dates of 4th December 2020, 20th January 2021, 23rd July 2021 and 24th July 2021.

Yes, agreed - I'd also request any account notes or other internal documentation related to those conversations, i.e. what triggered them, how did the bank staff summarise the outcome, etc.  As above, they may assert that some of that isn't disclosable but if you don't ask, you don't get (although technically DPA obliges organisations to provide everything they hold, subject to certain exemptions).

colsten

Deleted User said:

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

I agree, and she would be well advised to pre-empt this and open a current account elsewhere, and use the new account as her main account. I would suggest she should not do a CASS switch, so there's no direct connection to her Natwest account, and in any case, she wants to keep the Natwest account history for the foreseeable.

This would also be a prudent thing to do in case her 'lover' has access to / details about her Natwest account. In addition, she should change all her passwords and have her laptop and/or other devices checked for malware etc by a trusted professional.  She might also consider removing herself from dating sites and to change her email address, as she is almost certainly on a 'suckers list'. I trust she has already reported that sh*tbag to the dating site she met him on.

Cardriver45

colsten said:

Deleted User said:

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

I agree, and she would be well advised to pre-empt this and open a current account elsewhere, and use the new account as her main account. I would suggest she should not do a CASS switch, so there's no direct connection to her Natwest account, and in any case, she wants to keep the Natwest account history for the foreseeable.

This would also be a prudent thing to do in case her 'lover' has access to / details about her Natwest account. In addition, she should change all her passwords and have her laptop and/or other devices checked for malware etc by a trusted professional.  She might also consider removing herself from dating sites and to change her email address, as she is almost certainly on a 'suckers list'. I trust she has already reported that sh*tbag to the dating site she met him on.

Thanks. I don't think she will be using dating sites ever again.

Something she is worried about is that there were other potential victims who were paying into her account. As far as she knows only one other person knows for sure that they were being conned so the other potential victims could still be being conned by another means by the suspect. She has tried giving the names to the police who were investigating, but they weren't interested and just said tell action fraud. She tried contacting action fraud but all they've said is that she should just report the transactions where she lost her own money.

Where can she give the names of the other potential victims who paid money in so they can be notified so they don't still get conned by the suspect?

We also have an address in the UK  that were on his court papers and names, addresses in South Africa and all details of a passport that were supposed to be his lawyer's for when my Mum sent items out to him. But the police weren't interested in these either.

Cardriver45

It's a bloody nightmare. She even gave her address details after he said he wanted to send her a gift to thank her for helping and sent pics of my brothers and myself and said when it was our birthdays. We have all registered with CIFAS but they'll probably use our pics and details in other frauds as well now.

colsten

It's very laudable of your mother if she wants to warn the other victims but in all honesty, from what you said, she'd be better advised to sort herself first.

If this guy / these guys even have her address, she might even be well advised to move, and only tell people with an absolute need-to-know where she's moved to. Good to learn she and you have CIFAS protected registrations.

colsten

I wonder how  Neil Wainwright would explain how your mum got past their Customer Protection Team

born_again

Cardriver45 said:

colsten said:

Cardriver45 said:

Also as a widow with 3 disabled sons and who was left with a large amount of debt when my father passed away

An elderly (I suppose?) lady who until recently had a large amount of debt, now suddenly receiving around £100k, most of which she then uses to buy cryptocurrency should certainly set off all the AML and fraud bells in a bank. If your mum could talk herself out of this, she must have a very confident and convincing personality, which wouldn't very easily fit with the image of an emotionally vulnerable person. 

She has all the WhatsApp messages of the conversations which we sent screenshots of to her bank. They have unfrozen her account as well.

This comes across as a little insulting and judgemental actually as my Mum is devastated by all this and still really affected by it.

She still has an even larger amount of debt now. There's even messages of him sending the codes for the cryptocurrency

Plus it certainly didn't set off any alarm bells in her bank as they continued to allow her to do it

TBH, and this is not defending @colsten

You can not imagine how cynical people that work in the banks departments that deal with this are. As I know exactly. So for them to pick up on the signals from the transactions & flag them up, says to me just how convincing your mother must have been with her explanation's.
They can see what is going on and can only advise. There is only so much they can do, if a customer says it's all OK. They have  to let it go.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-56984844

Despite being warned & advised that it was a scam this person continued to pay the other person. She is now trying to claim the money back despite being warned by both of the banks.