Help, I’ve been scammed ! 😩😖

lilsymol

Hello ! I really need help and advice; we have lost over 10k to a scam. I’m in over my head!

So about a month ago my husband was the victim of an APP scam. He placed an order for covid tests via a text (😖) and then was called from the “Starling fraud department” saying they had blocked a £1300 charge. 

He was at work (he works outdoors and it’s noisy/frantic) and this person had him on the phone for an hour, convincing him that he was helping. He eventually said that he had to move his money to protect it. The scammer knew the make of phone he had and enough information about him and his banking app that he didn’t question it being real. In fact he told me afterwards that he had felt relived and grateful to the “very professional” support team. 😩

We immediately reported it to the bank (starling) and submitted a write-up of events. Then we received a long list of questions which we answered. 

The bank came back to us saying that they wouldn’t be refunding our money. They’re saying he was reckless/grossly negligent for not verifying the caller and transaction were genuine. Obviously we are devastated. 

Starling are signed up to the APP code (excuse me muddling the lingo) so I was expecting them to be more helpful. 

The real kicker is that the bank later sent him a message saying that “buying large amounts of crypto currency is against the bank’s policy”. So the transaction has clearly been flagged as dodgy but nothing was done to stop it. 

I think emptying both his accounts and savings pots and in one go was pretty unusual and should have been flagged. 

I contacted citizens advice. They gave me very generic suggestions… For example, writing a letter to the scammer for not sending us the covid tests he ordered. 😂 

I then rang the Ombudsman who told me to complain to the bank first before I report to them. 

This all happened just as my grandad died. We are dealing with my grandma who has bowel cancer and end stage dementia. I’m struggling with some undiagnosed neurological issues and my husband is out working to recoup our lost cash. We were saving up to take my treatment private as I’ve been waiting a long time and no help is coming. It’s all been a bit much! 

I really need some help so I can use what little time/energy I have efficiently. Thanks for taking the time to read this. 

Lily

elsien

The formal complaint from the bank would have to be the first step, referencing why you think the APP code is relevant.
This needs to come from your husband as he is the one who has been defrauded. Obviously you can help him to write it. 

The Ombudsman won’t look at it till you’ve exhausted the banks formal complaint processes. 

soolin

As above you must exhaust the banks complaint process before taking it further. I recently had cause to go to the ombudsmen and before I could start the official process I had to have a deadlock letter from the bank basically saying that their decisions was final and they would not be entering into any further correspondence with me. Mine wasn’t fraud, mine was a case of non action by the bank. 

Mine was a very slow process partly due to the fact that the bank would not reply to me at all, just kept stalling and asking for the same info over and over and then denying I’d supplied anything even after they had acknowledged it. The deadlock letter was issued after a year.

The ombudsman then took another year as the bank also wouldn’t respond to them , and in the end after a new assessor was appointed they were given a last chance to appeal which they ignored and the case was found in my favour. The bank never contacted me nor mentioned it again, the money just went back into my account 2 days later. 

Ergates

When you set up a payment in the Starling banking app, does it put up warnings about potential fraud?     Does it go through the Confirmation of Payee process (where it checks the name on the account against the name you give)?

If it does these things, and your husband ignored those warnings, then that will probably be central to the banks argument that they are not responsible.

Manxman_in_exile

Slightly off topic, but my wife and I had an entirely different experience a couple of weeks ago.

We both bank with Santander and have done for about 10 years, but we don't use on-line banking, we mostly use the 'phone.  She was trying to transfer a rather large sum of money to an account of mine at HSBC (she had done so before) and we were both VERY impressed by the obstacles Santander put in her place before the transfer (I listened in to the conversation).

She was asked umpteen times by two different people to confirm that she knew exactly what she was doing, that she was initiating the transfer herself and had not been told do do it by someone else, and that she understood the money could not be recovered if anything went wrong.  They even asked how long we had been married!  In all, from the time she got through to a human being at Santander it took about 40 minutes before the call was over and the transfer done.  She must have been asked over 50 separate questions and given a dozen warnings about the dangers of what she was doing.

It was a bit annoying at the time, but on reflection we were quite impressed that Santander had gone to such lengths to safeguard her money from potential fraud.

And in the middle of last year I was trying to transfer money from my Santander account to the same HSBC account (a transfer which I must have done at least 20 times in the past) and they refused to do so because I couldn't satisfy them as to who I was even though I'd got through all the 'phone banking security checks!

They wanted me to identify a recent transaction from the account, but as I only get a statement on this account every three months I was unable to do so,  (I "guessed" the value of a recurring payment but I was a few pence out apparently!), and they refused to deal with me.  I then had to get details via 'phone banking of recent transactions and go through the transfer process again.

Again it was quite annoying at the time and I did draft a complaint about it, but I never sent it as I decided I was quite happy that Santander seemed quite serious about keeping my money safe.

Silvertabby

My sympathies but, to be fair to your bank, if I had a £ for every time I read the warning 'not to transfer money to a safe account' I'd be a very happy bunny.  This scam is so old it was even the subject of an episode of 'Ironsides' back in the 1960s/70s (except in that case the money had to be drawn out in cash and handed to a fake FBI officer for safe keeping).

RogerBareford

lilsymol said:

Hello ! I really need help and advice; we have lost over 10k to a scam. I’m in over my head!

So about a month ago my husband was the victim of an APP scam. He placed an order for covid tests via a text (😖) and then was called from the “Starling fraud department” saying they had blocked a £1300 charge. 

He was at work (he works outdoors and it’s noisy/frantic) and this person had him on the phone for an hour, convincing him that he was helping. He eventually said that he had to move his money to protect it. The scammer knew the make of phone he had and enough information about him and his banking app that he didn’t question it being real. In fact he told me afterwards that he had felt relived and grateful to the “very professional” support team. 😩

We immediately reported it to the bank (starling) and submitted a write-up of events. Then we received a long list of questions which we answered. 

The bank came back to us saying that they wouldn’t be refunding our money. They’re saying he was reckless/grossly negligent for not verifying the caller and transaction were genuine. Obviously we are devastated. 

Starling are signed up to the APP code (excuse me muddling the lingo) so I was expecting them to be more helpful. 

The real kicker is that the bank later sent him a message saying that “buying large amounts of crypto currency is against the bank’s policy”. So the transaction has clearly been flagged as dodgy but nothing was done to stop it. 

I think emptying both his accounts and savings pots and in one go was pretty unusual and should have been flagged. 

I contacted citizens advice. They gave me very generic suggestions… For example, writing a letter to the scammer for not sending us the covid tests he ordered. 😂 

I then rang the Ombudsman who told me to complain to the bank first before I report to them. 

This all happened just as my grandad died. We are dealing with my grandma who has bowel cancer and end stage dementia. I’m struggling with some undiagnosed neurological issues and my husband is out working to recoup our lost cash. We were saving up to take my treatment private as I’ve been waiting a long time and no help is coming. It’s all been a bit much! 

I really need some help so I can use what little time/energy I have efficiently. Thanks for taking the time to read this. 

Lily

But why should the bank refund you? If anything i think it's good that they didn't because they wern't at fault for allowing your husband to willingly transfer his own money.

I also don't understnad why anyone falls for this scam because why would a bank ask you to transfer the money to another account to "keep it safe". If they actually worked for the bank then they would be able to transfer it themselves and if for some reason i was asked to do that and i beleived they couldn't keep it safe then i would just transfer it to one of my own accounts in another bank and the problem is solved. Why would he transfer his money to an account he had no access too?