Solicitor exchange of contracts scam - help needed

dodski69

Hello all i need some advice. 

My mum who is 70 has just been scammed out of £40,000 as her solicitors had a data breach and I am not sure how we can get the funds back.
She is in the process of buying a house and is close to exchange, she started to get emails saying that they need to exchange immediately and she needed to send the funds ASAP otherwise she would lose the funds. We now know these emails were not from the solicitor but looked official with a few mistakes in the spelling and email address, sadly she never spotted this and went to her local building society and asked them to transfer the funds to the Natwest account that she thought was from the Solicitors, this was transferred by BACs last week and subsequently, the solicitors are now saying it's not their fault even though they had the breach that caused her to transfer the funds she agreed to their terms of business and this is covered in the agreement. We are trying to get the money back, however, I am looking for any advice as she is in bits at the moment. thanks  

Mark_d

Your mum needs to complain via the building society first.  If they didn't take reasonable steps to prevent the fraud then they may well pay out

tacpot12

Has she asked Nationwide to recover the money from the NatWest account, and if so, what have they said about the potential to recover the money? 

I would suggest that you ask your Mum to describe exactly what happened in the Nationwide branch when she asked them to transfer the money. Her request should have rung alarm bells in the Branch. Any request to transfer money urgently should have been looked at very suspicously and your Mother challenged as to where the payment details came from. The Nationwide staff should also have spotted the spelling errors in the firms names. A complaint to Nationwide holding them liable for not spotting and preventing the fraud might be appropriate. 

NatWest also seem to be culpable in opening an account for an entity that doesn't exist.

This advice is too late to help your Mum but might help others. If you are sending a large amount to a solicitor, sent a small random amount first, e.g. £2.38, and then call the solicitor on a number you know to be their number and ask them to confirm how much has been received. If they confirm the correct amount, you know that you have the right  bank details and that you have been speaking to someone who can see into their bank account.

Herzlos

You should be going to the police too if you haven't already and get them involved.


You also need to try and see if there's some temporary way to get the funds for the purchase because it could take weeks/months to get it back especially if you need to sue the solicitor or their insurance company and by that point the sale will have long fallen apart.

Voyager2002

What a nightmare!

There is a body, the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority, that investigates complaints against solicitors. If the data breach was the fault of the solicitor then they might help to secure the return of the money.

Solicitors will usually make it very clear to clients that bank account details must be obtained by telephoning them and will never be included in an email, to avoid precisely this kind of issue. Was a statement to this effect included in the solicitors' T and Cs? If not, then again they might be deemed to have been negligent.

km1500

yes this is certainly true in my experience - when you engage solicitors at the beginning of the buying or selling process they send you a letter saying that bank details will never be changed or included an email etc

saajan_12

What exactly happened before making the transaction - 
* Was the purchase relatively close to exchange, with most items done? 
* Had the solicitor shared bank details previously that were different, or were they to be given later (by phone usually)?
* What exactly was the data breach? ie what data did the scammer get a hold of, vs just guessing / being vague about in the email to mum?
* What happened when making the transfer? Did a warning on the business name come up and did Mum click to proceed anyway? 
* Were there any fraud markers or holds applied by Nationwide (Even if they subsequently released the funds)?

born_again

dodski69 said:

Hello all i need some advice. 

My mum who is 70 has just been scammed out of £40,000 as her solicitors had a data breach and I am not sure how we can get the funds back.
She is in the process of buying a house and is close to exchange, she started to get emails saying that they need to exchange immediately and she needed to send the funds ASAP otherwise she would lose the funds. We now know these emails were not from the solicitor but looked official with a few mistakes in the spelling and email address, sadly she never spotted this and went to her local building society and asked them to transfer the funds to the Natwest account that she thought was from the Solicitors, this was transferred by BACs last week and subsequently, the solicitors are now saying it's not their fault even though they had the breach that caused her to transfer the funds she agreed to their terms of business and this is covered in the agreement. We are trying to get the money back, however, I am looking for any advice as she is in bits at the moment. thanks  

Did the staff not question how she got the details?
As this is a main security of payment transfer in these situations that if via email you should confirm the details with the solicitor via phone.
As this is a very well know scam.

AskAsk

Solicitors will have this written all over their T&C that you should call their office to check the bank details.  Your mother would have already made payment on account before the solicitors will start any work, so she should have paid into that account and not a new one. 

Understandably, your mother is elderly, but the solicitors can't be held responsible here.  The bank should have checked before they made the transfer but she may have told them that she has paid them before when asked.  So they would have taken her word.

sheramber

If the scammers set up the NatWest in the  solicitors name then there would not be any alert on the name.

AskAsk

sheramber said:

If the scammers set up the NatWest in the  solicitors name then there would not be any alert on the name.

Yeah, and the bank is not responsible for checking that the solicitor exists!  Someone did say that the bank should not allow the account to be set up, so it does beg the question of how they managed to do so.