Fraudster tried to empty building society account refund refused

Toscaboy

I’m out of mind, firstly I was waiting for a parcel from Royal Mail, I missed the delivery.
I had a email to say I needed to pay for re delivery so I did.
The parcel came next day, BUT the postman said I should not of had to pay for re delivery this left me confused.
a couple of days later I had a phone call stating they were my building society fraud prevention and someone had tried to make a purchase for £3000 in Birmingham and was it me.
They said I needed to move the money from this account as the Royal Mail payment was a scam and that is how the fraudsters has got my account details.
I was petrified, flustered, panic stricken.
They began telling me how to move the money out of the affected account before anymore was taken.
I said how do I know you are my building society? So they sent me a text message with the heading to confirm I was talking to them and gave me a code to continue.
To cut a long story short it was a fraudster he managed to transfer £10k from one account in split payments to some safe account so I was told.
My building society phoned me to say there was some unusual activity that they had monitored and has anyone contacted me.
The fraudster hung up as they were trying to get through to me.
My building society said that they managed to stop the transfers and there was nothing to be concerned about.
Next day I’m told they didn’t intervene quickly enough to get all the money back and that £5k was gone from the account.
they are sorry to refuse a refund because the payments were made from the same IP address?!?!? 

I’ve explained the account in question is for a mentally handicapped gentleman his personal savings, also I was dealing with my husband while the fraudster was on the phone he has late stage Parkinson’s and I care for him 24/7 I was trying to deal with his meds and I was so confused and was in a terrible state.
They say it’s a scam NOT fraud?!?! that I authorised the payments.
I told them I manage this account for my disabled brother in law who has Downes Syndrome and severe learning disabilities.
Im obviously not going to just let this happen, just hope I have the energy to fight his corner.
sorry for the long long post.
Thanks for listening and all please please please be extra vigilant xxx

kaMelo

To clarify,
In whose name is the building society account, yours or your brothers?
How did the fraudsters manage to transfer money to another account?
How much money have they taken, five or ten thousand pounds?

eskbanker

Toscaboy said:

I said how do I know you are my building society? So they sent me a text message with the heading to confirm I was talking to them and gave me a code to continue.

Fraudsters can easily spoof phone numbers, so receiving a text that's presented as being from your bank/BS doesn't prove it's genuine - I appreciate that it's too late for you now, but it may help other readers.

Toscaboy said:

To cut a long story short it was a fraudster he managed to transfer £10k from one account in split payments to some safe account so I was told.

[...]

they are sorry to refuse a refund because the payments were made from the same IP address?!?!? 

[...]

They say it’s a scam NOT fraud?!?! that I authorised the payments.

It doesn't really matter which label is used, but the key issue is the extent (if any) to which they're liable to reimburse you - the main banks have signed up to a voluntary code under which they'll refund victims of authorised push payment (APP) scams, but this hasn't extended to many (maybe not any) building societies, so if you did authorise the payments, albeit under duress and instruction, and without realising what you were doing, then they're unlikely to be liable.  Which building society is it and have you reported the matter to the police yet?

grumbler

kaMelo said:

To clarify,
In whose name is the building society account, yours or your brothers?

The latter. The OP didn't have any legal right to operate this account. The brother broke the T&C by letting the OP to do this (I guess).

How did the fraudsters manage to transfer money to another account?

They didn't. The OP did, by following their instructions.

How much money have they taken, five or ten thousand pounds?

£10K was transferred, £5K stopped, £5K lost.

Correct?

sheramber

grumbler said:

kaMelo said:

To clarify,
In whose name is the building society account, yours or your brothers?

The latter. The OP didn't have any legal right to operate this account. The brother broke the T&C by letting the OP to do l ok

You probably guess wrong.

Since her  brother in law  has learning difficulties it is quite possible the OP does have the legal  legal right to operate the account.

Unlikely the BS would have contacted/spoken to her if she didn’t. 

The OP has not said whether the account is in her name or brother in laws’s.B it it appears he is not able to manage his own affairs. 

grumbler

sheramber said:

grumbler said:

kaMelo said:

To clarify,
In whose name is the building society account, yours or your brothers?

The latter. The OP didn't have any legal right to operate this account. The brother broke the T&C by letting the OP to do l ok

Unlikely the BS would have contacted/spoken to her if she didn’t. 

The OP has not said whether the account is in her name or brother in laws’s.B it it appears he is not able to manage his own affairs. 

How do you know it's 'her', not 'him'? I thought Toscaboy implied the latter.

phillw

Banks and Building societies purely exist to keep your money safe. If anyone ever asks you to transfer money to keep it safe, then it's a scam.

It's a common tactic to scam you with a royal mail fee, then contact you again and tell you that you have been scammed & you need to protect your account.

They will often try setting up your account on a mobile device, so that will trigger a security code being sent to you. Which you should never read out to them.

Zanderman

phillw said:

Banks and Building societies purely exist to keep your money safe. If anyone ever asks you to transfer money to keep it safe, then it's a scam.
...

Whether that is the 'pure' function of banks is perhaps debateable (though maybe not quite so debateable for building societies). 

But yes, the premise that  a bank, or building society, have so little control over their own systems that they have to ask you to move money around - and to a different bank - is an extraordinary one. Which, with a moment's clear thought, is obviously untrue. 

But as the OP says, they panicked, which is what the fraudsters rely on, as reasonable thought can be bypassed when panicking.

pridehappy

If you are a vulnerable customer, which you sound like you are, you should be refunded. Coincidentally, you received the email from Royal Mail when expecting a delayed parcel. If you didn't expect this parcel, you would have realised it was a scam most likely.

However, most banks and building societies have warnings on their mobile app or online banking stating that if you've been asked to transfer money, don't do it. If you skipped this step or ignored it, then they technically can hold you accountable. It sounds horrible, but it's true.

I'm hoping you receive a full refund, but always put in a complaint with your provider and if needed take your case to the Financial Ombudsman. It's the most you can do.

35har1old

pridehappy said:

If you are a vulnerable customer, which you sound like you are, you should be refunded. Coincidentally, you received the email from Royal Mail when expecting a delayed parcel. If you didn't expect this parcel, you would have realised it was a scam most likely.

However, most banks and building societies have warnings on their mobile app or online banking stating that if you've been asked to transfer money, don't do it. If you skipped this step or ignored it, then they technically can hold you accountable. It sounds horrible, but it's true.

I'm hoping you receive a full refund, but always put in a complaint with your provider and if needed take your case to the Financial Ombudsman. It's the most you can do.

What's the point of signing up to a voluntary charter if what you say is true if you ignore the warnings you are held accountable every transaction carries that warning so it makes the charter a waste of time
So if you bank say with Santander  who has set a limit of £2000 per transaction and you then change the limit to £3000 you are then putting yourself at risk the charter is worthless

eskbanker

35har1old said:

What's the point of signing up to a voluntary charter if what you say is true if you ignore the warnings you are held accountable every transaction carries that warning so it makes the charter a waste of time
So if you bank say with Santander  who has set a limit of £2000 per transaction and you then change the limit to £3000 you are then putting yourself at risk the charter is worthless

The code embodies the concept of Effective Warnings to be invoked when initiating certain transactions:

(c) Effective Warnings should be risk based and, where possible, tailored to the APP scam risk indicators and any specific APP scam types identified through the user interface with which the Customer is initiating the payment instructions

(d) Effective Warnings should enable the Customer to understand what actions they need to take to address the risk, such as more appropriate payment methods which may have additional protections, and the consequences of not doing so.

(e) As a minimum, Effective Warnings should meet the following criteria

(i) Understandable – in plain language, intelligible and meaningful to the Customer

(ii) Clear - in line with fair, clear and not misleading standard as set out in Principle 7 of the FCA’s Principles for Businesses

(iii) Impactful – to positively affect Customer decision-making in a manner whereby the likelihood of an APP scam succeeding is reduced. This should include steps to ensure that the Customer can reasonably understand the consequences of continuing with an irrevocable payment;

(iv) Timely – given at points in the Payment Journey most likely to have impact on the Customer’s decision-making;

(v) Specific – tailored to the customer type and the APP scam risk identified by analytics during the Payment Journey, and/or during contact with the Customer. 

so isn't related to changing payment limits.

The intention behind the last of these points is to avoid them being generic boilerplate text that'll be ignored through familiarity, but there's a limit to how impactful such warnings can realistically be, especially in scenarios where customers are being coached, and ultimately if a customer chooses to ignore them then they are effectively accepting responsibility for their actions.  What would you see as a realistic alternative?

Participating institutions are also expected to have fraud detection algorithms to identify suspicious transactions and to put them on hold, which is what eventually happened here, but it's more of an art than a science, and can't be relied on to spot every transaction that might be considered unusual.  Perhaps worth pointing out that for every thread on here complaining about an institution allowing unusual transactions through, there'll be another one objecting to them being challenged....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6496724/should-my-bank-be-asking-me-how-i-am-spending-my-money-when-i-make-large-cash-withdrawals