Scam 13 September 2022 at 1:29PM in Budgeting & bank accounts 11 replies 582 views

UmmeBilaal

Hi there 

Before I start my story I'd just like to say that after this event occurred we have never felt so naive and stupid and also felt like how did we not see the warning signs. It's the type of scam that if I was to read about Id think I'll never fall for something like that! But we did... Please be gentle 😭

In June 2022 so this year my husband and I saw a car being advertised on Facebook... This particular profile was advertising 2 cars a range rover and a BMW.. we were interested in the BMW particularly because it was Hybrid and I'd just given birth to my second child we needed a bigger car and thought why not go for a partially electric one with the rising fuel prices and all.. we got in touch with the lady who was advertising and she said it belonged to her uncle who was retired and had moved to Germany. He would contact us. Her uncle then contacted us via WhatsApp and told us that he had left the car in storage with a logistics company in Ireland who would handle the sale on behalf of him... The logistics company then got InTouch with us and to cut a long story short after a series of emails in which they sent us contracts and we checked their website out checked the company on Google Street view and it came up proper the uncle also sent us a picture of his driving license and we got to the payment stage.. they said they couldn't do PayPal but the money would be paid into an escrow account and the owner would only get the money once the car was delivered to us and we were completely happy. My husband and I had never heard of an escrow account and after googling it it all sounded quite legit.. the company said we could make payments in different transactions if we wished. My brother in-law had some of the money I had some and My husband had some so we ended up making 3 transactions a total of £6200 

The banks involved were: NatWest Halifax and revolut. We still needed to make one more payment from Halifax of £3000 and they flagged the account up as suspicious.. (receivers bank account was HSBC) 

So we got in touch with the logistics company who said if the owner agreed we could make the final payment on delivery of the car. All this was done in Monday and car was to be delivered Friday. 

Friday came and the Car never arrived.. the owner and the company both went mute. We managed to get in touch with the director of this company who said the website was not his.. he said the whole thing was a scam and the scammers had been using his company name. 

All 3 banks have done their investigations and have said they can't do anything to recover the money.. I tried to complain directly to HSBC and they've said my bank should complain on our behalf which the bank have said they can't they can only deal with a complaint on how they have dealt with this situation. 

We reported it on action fraud and nothing much has been done there. 

We're feeling quite despondent and upset knowing that someone somewhere has our money and has probably had a good time with it... Our money that has been earned through hard work through my husband working all the shifts that he can get! 

I know we've been very stupid in this situation... Please be gentle we could do with all the advice on how to proceed at this point


Warm regards 

born_again

You can only complain to your bank that you used to make the payment. In effect that is all you can do & hope they will revisit the transactions (were they all through one bank?)
How were transaction made. Online or via phone? 

Action fraud do not investigate crimes. Only log them & pass to local police who may look at them. Sadly in your case they know there is no chance of a result. The money will have left the account pretty much straight away. Passed to another account a few times as well.

Sadly what you have said is a common scam 😢

UmmeBilaal

born_again said:

You can only complain to your bank that you used to make the payment. In effect that is all you can do & hope they will revisit the transactions (were they all through one bank?)
How were transaction made. Online or via phone? 

Action fraud do not investigate crimes. Only log them & pass to local police who may look at them. Sadly in your case they know there is no chance of a result. The money will have left the account pretty much straight away. Passed to another account a few times as well.

Sadly what you have said is a common scam 😢

Thank you for your response we made 3 transactions through 3 banks :-( 

k3lvc

UmmeBilaal said:

I know we've been very stupid in this situation... Please be gentle we could do with all the advice on how to proceed at this point

You're not the first and won't be the last to fall for this - but you're unlikely to see any of your money again and certainly don't go chasing the losses if someone offers to help you to recover some of it for a fee

Only other advice is never chase the cheapest car of a particular model in the country - it's cheap for a reason - either it's nicked/broken or it's a scam

masonic

Were you sending the money to a UK bank account, or did this involve an international bank transfer? If UK, then I don't know about Revolut, but NatWest should have had Confirmation of Payee, so did the account name you were given match the receiving account? Did it match the company name you thought you were dealing with?

(edit: apparently Revolut does have Confirmation of Payee)

binao

UmmeBilaal said:

Hi there 

Before I start my story I'd just like to say that after this event occurred we have never felt so naive and stupid and also felt like how did we not see the warning signs. It's the type of scam that if I was to read about Id think I'll never fall for something like that! But we did... Please be gentle 😭

In June 2022 so this year my husband and I saw a car being advertised on Facebook... This particular profile was advertising 2 cars a range rover and a BMW.. we were interested in the BMW particularly because it was Hybrid and I'd just given birth to my second child we needed a bigger car and thought why not go for a partially electric one with the rising fuel prices and all.. we got in touch with the lady who was advertising and she said it belonged to her uncle who was retired and had moved to Germany. He would contact us. Her uncle then contacted us via WhatsApp and told us that he had left the car in storage with a logistics company in Ireland who would handle the sale on behalf of him... The logistics company then got InTouch with us and to cut a long story short after a series of emails in which they sent us contracts and we checked their website out checked the company on Google Street view and it came up proper the uncle also sent us a picture of his driving license and we got to the payment stage.. they said they couldn't do PayPal but the money would be paid into an escrow account and the owner would only get the money once the car was delivered to us and we were completely happy. My husband and I had never heard of an escrow account and after googling it it all sounded quite legit.. the company said we could make payments in different transactions if we wished. My brother in-law had some of the money I had some and My husband had some so we ended up making 3 transactions a total of £6200 

The banks involved were: NatWest Halifax and revolut. We still needed to make one more payment from Halifax of £3000 and they flagged the account up as suspicious.. (receivers bank account was HSBC) 

So we got in touch with the logistics company who said if the owner agreed we could make the final payment on delivery of the car. All this was done in Monday and car was to be delivered Friday. 

Friday came and the Car never arrived.. the owner and the company both went mute. We managed to get in touch with the director of this company who said the website was not his.. he said the whole thing was a scam and the scammers had been using his company name. 

All 3 banks have done their investigations and have said they can't do anything to recover the money.. I tried to complain directly to HSBC and they've said my bank should complain on our behalf which the bank have said they can't they can only deal with a complaint on how they have dealt with this situation. 

We reported it on action fraud and nothing much has been done there. 

We're feeling quite despondent and upset knowing that someone somewhere has our money and has probably had a good time with it... Our money that has been earned through hard work through my husband working all the shifts that he can get! 

I know we've been very stupid in this situation... Please be gentle we could do with all the advice on how to proceed at this point


Warm regards 

How many payments and attempted payments were via Halifax?

UmmeBilaal

binao said:

UmmeBilaal said:

Hi there 

Before I start my story I'd just like to say that after this event occurred we have never felt so naive and stupid and also felt like how did we not see the warning signs. It's the type of scam that if I was to read about Id think I'll never fall for something like that! But we did... Please be gentle 😭

In June 2022 so this year my husband and I saw a car being advertised on Facebook... This particular profile was advertising 2 cars a range rover and a BMW.. we were interested in the BMW particularly because it was Hybrid and I'd just given birth to my second child we needed a bigger car and thought why not go for a partially electric one with the rising fuel prices and all.. we got in touch with the lady who was advertising and she said it belonged to her uncle who was retired and had moved to Germany. He would contact us. Her uncle then contacted us via WhatsApp and told us that he had left the car in storage with a logistics company in Ireland who would handle the sale on behalf of him... The logistics company then got InTouch with us and to cut a long story short after a series of emails in which they sent us contracts and we checked their website out checked the company on Google Street view and it came up proper the uncle also sent us a picture of his driving license and we got to the payment stage.. they said they couldn't do PayPal but the money would be paid into an escrow account and the owner would only get the money once the car was delivered to us and we were completely happy. My husband and I had never heard of an escrow account and after googling it it all sounded quite legit.. the company said we could make payments in different transactions if we wished. My brother in-law had some of the money I had some and My husband had some so we ended up making 3 transactions a total of £6200 

The banks involved were: NatWest Halifax and revolut. We still needed to make one more payment from Halifax of £3000 and they flagged the account up as suspicious.. (receivers bank account was HSBC) 

So we got in touch with the logistics company who said if the owner agreed we could make the final payment on delivery of the car. All this was done in Monday and car was to be delivered Friday. 

Friday came and the Car never arrived.. the owner and the company both went mute. We managed to get in touch with the director of this company who said the website was not his.. he said the whole thing was a scam and the scammers had been using his company name. 

All 3 banks have done their investigations and have said they can't do anything to recover the money.. I tried to complain directly to HSBC and they've said my bank should complain on our behalf which the bank have said they can't they can only deal with a complaint on how they have dealt with this situation. 

We reported it on action fraud and nothing much has been done there. 

We're feeling quite despondent and upset knowing that someone somewhere has our money and has probably had a good time with it... Our money that has been earned through hard work through my husband working all the shifts that he can get! 

I know we've been very stupid in this situation... Please be gentle we could do with all the advice on how to proceed at this point


Warm regards 

How many payments and attempted payments were via Halifax?

2 payments.. one was made and the other an attempt 

UmmeBilaal

masonic said:

Were you sending the money to a UK bank account, or did this involve an international bank transfer? If UK, then I don't know about Revolut, but NatWest should have had Confirmation of Payee, so did the account name you were given match the receiving account? Did it match the company name you thought you were dealing with?

(edit: apparently Revolut does have Confirmation of Payee)

It was HSBC everything matched 

masonic

UmmeBilaal said:

masonic said:

Were you sending the money to a UK bank account, or did this involve an international bank transfer? If UK, then I don't know about Revolut, but NatWest should have had Confirmation of Payee, so did the account name you were given match the receiving account? Did it match the company name you thought you were dealing with?

(edit: apparently Revolut does have Confirmation of Payee)

It was HSBC everything matched 

That raises some questions about the bank account. Either a business account in the name of this company was opened by HSBC for the scammers, or this company's bank account has been compromised. If HSBC allowed fraudsters to open a bank account in the name of an unrelated company, then that would likely make them at least partially liable for what has happened.

The cornerstone of your complaint would therefore be that Confirmation of Payee matched the name of the business, so HSBC failed in its obligation to know the true identity of its customer, which was not the business named as the owner of the account. You relied upon the information given to you by the Confirmation of Payee system that the bank account was owned by the business named as the account holder.

If you are having difficulty getting any of the banks to accept your complaint, then you should contact the Financial Ombudsman Service who should be able to intervene on your behalf and get the complaint registered with the most appropriate bank.

binao

UmmeBilaal said:

binao said:

UmmeBilaal said:

Hi there 

Before I start my story I'd just like to say that after this event occurred we have never felt so naive and stupid and also felt like how did we not see the warning signs. It's the type of scam that if I was to read about Id think I'll never fall for something like that! But we did... Please be gentle 😭

In June 2022 so this year my husband and I saw a car being advertised on Facebook... This particular profile was advertising 2 cars a range rover and a BMW.. we were interested in the BMW particularly because it was Hybrid and I'd just given birth to my second child we needed a bigger car and thought why not go for a partially electric one with the rising fuel prices and all.. we got in touch with the lady who was advertising and she said it belonged to her uncle who was retired and had moved to Germany. He would contact us. Her uncle then contacted us via WhatsApp and told us that he had left the car in storage with a logistics company in Ireland who would handle the sale on behalf of him... The logistics company then got InTouch with us and to cut a long story short after a series of emails in which they sent us contracts and we checked their website out checked the company on Google Street view and it came up proper the uncle also sent us a picture of his driving license and we got to the payment stage.. they said they couldn't do PayPal but the money would be paid into an escrow account and the owner would only get the money once the car was delivered to us and we were completely happy. My husband and I had never heard of an escrow account and after googling it it all sounded quite legit.. the company said we could make payments in different transactions if we wished. My brother in-law had some of the money I had some and My husband had some so we ended up making 3 transactions a total of £6200 

The banks involved were: NatWest Halifax and revolut. We still needed to make one more payment from Halifax of £3000 and they flagged the account up as suspicious.. (receivers bank account was HSBC) 

So we got in touch with the logistics company who said if the owner agreed we could make the final payment on delivery of the car. All this was done in Monday and car was to be delivered Friday. 

Friday came and the Car never arrived.. the owner and the company both went mute. We managed to get in touch with the director of this company who said the website was not his.. he said the whole thing was a scam and the scammers had been using his company name. 

All 3 banks have done their investigations and have said they can't do anything to recover the money.. I tried to complain directly to HSBC and they've said my bank should complain on our behalf which the bank have said they can't they can only deal with a complaint on how they have dealt with this situation. 

We reported it on action fraud and nothing much has been done there. 

We're feeling quite despondent and upset knowing that someone somewhere has our money and has probably had a good time with it... Our money that has been earned through hard work through my husband working all the shifts that he can get! 

I know we've been very stupid in this situation... Please be gentle we could do with all the advice on how to proceed at this point


Warm regards 

How many payments and attempted payments were via Halifax?

2 payments.. one was made and the other an attempt 

If the "attempt" was suspicious, why was the "first",  that was "made" not suspicious?

Zanderman

masonic said:

UmmeBilaal said:

masonic said:

Were you sending the money to a UK bank account, or did this involve an international bank transfer? If UK, then I don't know about Revolut, but NatWest should have had Confirmation of Payee, so did the account name you were given match the receiving account? Did it match the company name you thought you were dealing with?

(edit: apparently Revolut does have Confirmation of Payee)

It was HSBC everything matched 

That raises some questions about the bank account. Either a business account in the name of this company was opened by HSBC for the scammers, or this company's bank account has been compromised. If HSBC allowed fraudsters to open a bank account in the name of an unrelated company, then that would likely make them at least partially liable for what has happened.

The cornerstone of your complaint would therefore be that Confirmation of Payee matched the name of the business, so HSBC failed in its obligation to know the true identity of its customer, which was not the business named as the owner of the account. You relied upon the information given to you by the Confirmation of Payee system that the bank account was owned by the business named as the account holder.

If you are having difficulty getting any of the banks to accept your complaint, then you should contact the Financial Ombudsman Service who should be able to intervene on your behalf and get the complaint registered with the most appropriate bank.

Well, maybe yes. But much depends on what the 'match' actually was. If the real company was "Acme Motor Storage Inc" but the match was "Acme Car Ltd" then I doubt the bank is liable. It's all a matter of whether the CoP was an exact match with an exact real outfit. The crux is what is the exact name of the real outfit. CoP can't be relied on if the name expected isn't the real (and exact) name.

And, though no consolation to the OP, what's been described is classic scam. Lots of red flags, the biggest being unable to see it before buying. But the reason scams work is that they seem real, so we all live and learn, sometimes the hard way.