What compensation could I be entitled to? Can I get my money back?

licha4531

Thank you.

They have obtained entry to one of my accounts were funds were scheduled to be transferred to another. The intended recipient account details have been altered to divert the funds to an account held by the hacker.

I hadn’t received any emails or texts but I believe the person responsible may have had access to my device remotely, I also think this is most likely how they’ve obtained my log in details in the first place. I stated in the original post I am not exactly sure how this has happened as I’ve not been aware of any phishing type messages or calls.

My question really was about whether anyone was aware of any mechanisms in place with financial institutions to reimburse, and what kind of circumstances this is in. I appreciate the bank has probably not done anything wrong however I have found numerous posts online saying people have got their money back, although the circumstances are different to mine.

It’s not an ex partner or anyone else connected to me personally as no one but me knew where the funds were invested.

Aylesbury_Duck

licha4531 said:

Thank you.

They have obtained entry to one of my accounts were funds were scheduled to be transferred to another. The intended recipient account details have been altered to divert the funds to an account held by the hacker.

I hadn’t received any emails or texts but I believe the person responsible may have had access to my device remotely, I also think this is most likely how they’ve obtained my log in details in the first place. I stated in the original post I am not exactly sure how this has happened as I’ve not been aware of any phishing type messages or calls.

My question really was about whether anyone was aware of any mechanisms in place with financial institutions to reimburse, and what kind of circumstances this is in. I appreciate the bank has probably not done anything wrong however I have found numerous posts online saying people have got their money back, although the circumstances are different to mine.

It’s not an ex partner or anyone else connected to me personally as no one but me knew where the funds were invested.

How has that happened without you being notified?  I bank with Lloyds, and any new payee creation generates an automated alert, requires telephone authorisation and then is confirmed by text message.  I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that all banks operate in a similar manner?  Yet it seems you had no alert to what was happening?  How did you discover this 'scam'?

This all sounds very suspicious, and I hope you've taken immediate action to secure all your devices and accounts.

I doubt you're getting any money back until it's all been thoroughly investigated and the precise circumstances determined.  Even then, if you've been unreasonably negligent with account security, you may get nothing.

licha4531

I discovered it when I did not receive the funds into my own bank account and chased up with the bank.

As I’ve said I believe security must have been overridden through access to my device and of course I have taken every step to secure devices and accounts on the advice of both the bank and police.

Perhaps some advice from someone who knows what unreasonable negligence could be defined as might be useful, since I haven’t gone out of my way to give anyone access to my device or accounts. I’m trying to understand worst case scenario here since I’m talking about my entire savings for the deposit on my first house which had been due to complete in a few days.

Aylesbury_Duck

licha4531 said:

I discovered it when I did not receive the funds into my own bank account and chased up with the bank.

As I’ve said I believe security must have been overridden through access to my device and of course I have taken every step to secure devices and accounts on the advice of both the bank and police.

Perhaps some advice from someone who knows what unreasonable negligence could be defined as might be useful, since I haven’t gone out of my way to give anyone access to my device or accounts. I’m trying to understand worst case scenario here since I’m talking about my entire savings for the deposit on my first house which had been due to complete in a few days.

Are we talking about two different banks here, e.g. a savings account with Bank A and a current account with Bank B, or is it two accounts with the same bank?

What 'device' are you talking about?  A PC? Tablet? Phone?  Did you have MFA on, using your phone as security?

Unreasonable negligence is a subjective thing, with many permutations of things it is reasonable for you to have done or not done. You may not have done anything to proactively endanger your account security, but it's perhaps something you haven't done that has exposed the account.

The worst case scenario is, I'm afraid, quite easy to state: You face the possibility that those funds are gone forever.  There's no way of sugar-coating that, but there's a long way to go before that's a realistic outcome.  I highly doubt this is getting sorted in the next few days.

eskbanker

licha4531 said:

I hadn’t received any emails or texts but I believe the person responsible may have had access to my device remotely, I also think this is most likely how they’ve obtained my log in details in the first place. I stated in the original post I am not exactly sure how this has happened as I’ve not been aware of any phishing type messages or calls.

[...]

It’s not an ex partner or anyone else connected to me personally as no one but me knew where the funds were invested.

licha4531 said:

As I’ve said I believe security must have been overridden through access to my device and of course I have taken every step to secure devices and accounts on the advice of both the bank and police.

Perhaps some advice from someone who knows what unreasonable negligence could be defined as might be useful, since I haven’t gone out of my way to give anyone access to my device or accounts.

To be honest it's going to be difficult for anyone on here to speculate about which circumstances might or might not be construed as negligent, so it would make more sense for you to ascertain what actually has happened and posters on here can perhaps offer guidance from there.

What specifically has led you to believe that your device was compromised?  Were your login details stored accessibly there or has some sort of keylogger been used?  Have you taken it to an expert to get it checked out and cleaned up?

Which institution were the savings with, and what measures do they take to secure accounts?  As above, good practice would be for some sort of notification to be sent to the account holder confirming change of linked account.

Gavin83

licha4531 said:

I discovered it when I did not receive the funds into my own bank account and chased up with the bank.

As I’ve said I believe security must have been overridden through access to my device and of course I have taken every step to secure devices and accounts on the advice of both the bank and police.

Perhaps some advice from someone who knows what unreasonable negligence could be defined as might be useful, since I haven’t gone out of my way to give anyone access to my device or accounts. I’m trying to understand worst case scenario here since I’m talking about my entire savings for the deposit on my first house which had been due to complete in a few days.

Due to complete in a few days? Had you already exchanged?

Worst case scenario is you won’t get those savings back. If you’ve exchanged on your property then you’ll also lose your exchange deposit (generally 10%) plus be responsible for the out of pocket costs for the rest of the chain.

If you have exchanged you could easily be £100k+ out of pocket on top of your lost savings. If you haven’t exchanged the scenario is a lot better but you’ll almost certainly lose the property.

Given the above I really hope for your sake you haven’t yet exchanged.

born_again

As @eskbanker.
Without more details of banks involved it's hard to say.
But compensation will not be paid.
Bank should be trying to chase funds and get the account they were paid too, frozen. Odds on long gone though.

Best outcome is Op get their money back. Odds on that hard to say. As bank will have to investigate devices used to make the changes from their systems.

Ath_Wat

How was this automatic transfer set up?  Would it entail somebody having to know you had it set up?  I am not sure how a random scammer would be aware you were about to transfer all your savings in.  When they got access to your account they would be far more likely just to transfer out whatever was already in there, surely.

eskbanker

Ath_Wat said:

How was this automatic transfer set up?  Would it entail somebody having to know you had it set up?  I am not sure how a random scammer would be aware you were about to transfer all your savings in.  When they got access to your account they would be far more likely just to transfer out whatever was already in there, surely.

To be fair, the fraudster could indeed have gained access to the savings account and emptied it, without this being in any way related to the fact that OP was intending to do the same thing into their own current account.

Aylesbury_Duck

Ath_Wat said:

How was this automatic transfer set up?  Would it entail somebody having to know you had it set up?  I am not sure how a random scammer would be aware you were about to transfer all your savings in.  When they got access to your account they would be far more likely just to transfer out whatever was already in there, surely.

I don't think it's that way round, although details are scant.  I infer that OP had a substantial sum in a savings account that she intended to send to her current account.  It's alleged that someone accessed her savings account and sent the money to their own account from there.  It's the savings account that was accessed, not the originally intended destination account.

I suspect an "inside job" because as you say, someone knew that the account was loaded with a large sum ready for the taking.