Asked to pay for course via bank transfer.

General_Grant

Eyeful said:

Ergates said:

Eyeful said:

Yes you should be concerned. Far too many scams occur using this technique. 
If the account details came in a letter, they could still be the account details of a scammer.
Email is the electronic equivalent of a post card.
Even if you know & trust the doctor an Email address can easily be spoofed. So it may have come from a scammer.

Always pay by credit card where ever possible.

An email with bank details coming from someone you're *expecting* a bill from, where the bank account details match the expected payee is very very unlikely to be a scam.

The only time time I would think it was very very unlikely to be a scam would be if I know & trust that person, they hand over their bank details to me directly & the details are confirmed by cop.

If the details came via email and I was expecting it, the minimum I would do is call them and have them quote their bank details to me directly & confirmed by cop.

I agree.

One has heard to house purchase deposits being diverted because a scammer sends an email as if from the solicitors saying their bank account details have been changed.  

Adamc

Hi it's a two day radiology course. It's £700. I genuinely do trust it's the consultant. The place is from someone who has dropped out so I wonder if they're using the transfer to pay them back or just not putting it through the books. 

Ergates

Adamc said:

Hi it's a two day radiology course. It's £700. I genuinely do trust it's the consultant. The place is from someone who has dropped out so I wonder if they're using the transfer to pay them back or just not putting it through the books. 

Bank transfers are a normal method of payment for such things.

Someone wishing to avoid putting money through their books would ask for cash.  A bank transfer leaves an indelible trace.

Ergates

General_Grant said:

Eyeful said:

Ergates said:

Eyeful said:

Yes you should be concerned. Far too many scams occur using this technique. 
If the account details came in a letter, they could still be the account details of a scammer.
Email is the electronic equivalent of a post card.
Even if you know & trust the doctor an Email address can easily be spoofed. So it may have come from a scammer.

Always pay by credit card where ever possible.

An email with bank details coming from someone you're *expecting* a bill from, where the bank account details match the expected payee is very very unlikely to be a scam.

The only time time I would think it was very very unlikely to be a scam would be if I know & trust that person, they hand over their bank details to me directly & the details are confirmed by cop.

If the details came via email and I was expecting it, the minimum I would do is call them and have them quote their bank details to me directly & confirmed by cop.

I agree.

One has heard to house purchase deposits being diverted because a scammer sends an email as if from the solicitors saying their bank account details have been changed.  

A house purchase is a large value transaction that creates a large footprint which gives scammers the motive and opportunity to set up such a scam.  The implementation of CoP has made such scams a lot harder.

A payment to a doctor for a course doesn't.   The scammer would need to know that the payment was due and how much the payment was for, would need to know the name of the doctor, know the name and email address of the payer, would then need to create sufficient fake documentation to open a bank account in the name of the doctor, then open said bank account, then set up an email address that appeared to come from the doctor, then send the email to the recipient with the payment details.   All in the timespan of the OP signing up for the course and the actual doctor sending out their legitimate email with the details.

This chain of events is not feasible - we're not talking about GCHQ here.

DullGreyGuy

SiliconChip said:

If the doctor is running the course as an individual then it's very unlikely that they will be in a position to take card payments. I'd suggest that you ask if you can pay a small deposit by transfer to secure your place on the course, then once the training starts and you have confirmed that all is genuine you pay the balance with another transfer.

Not really true given there is PayPal for anything online and these days Zettle doesn't even need a card reader for in person transactions if you have a moderately modern smartphone. They may not want to give up 2% in fees but thats a separate matter to not being in a position to accept payments. 


Paying by bank transfer is perfectly normal and reasonable. These days you can check the name on the account matches what you are expecting and so it simply comes down to trusting the person you are paying it to. 

WillPS

SiliconChip said:

If the doctor is running the course as an individual then it's very unlikely that they will be in a position to take card payments.

Why? For in person payments you can just buy a card terminal from Toolstation or WHSmiths nowadays.

For online payments anyone can just open a PayPal account to achieve exactly the same.

DullGreyGuy

WillPS said:

SiliconChip said:

If the doctor is running the course as an individual then it's very unlikely that they will be in a position to take card payments.

Why? For in person payments you can just buy a card terminal from Toolstation or WHSmiths nowadays.

Dont even need to buy a terminal these days @WillPS both Zettle, Square and Sumup can be operated on an iPhone, think Zettle supports Android too. For over £100 it becomes tap and pin for cards, ApplePay/GooglePay is unlimited as normal. 

sheramber

you can’t fully trust him if you are asking on here.

Eyeful

1. You say you know him & trust him. Speak to him directly & have him tell you  the name, sort code, and account number  he wants you to pay the money into.

2. If he does not want to give you this info to get your £700, then you will have a  reason to think something dodgy is going on.

3. If he does not know what you are talking about, you will know its a scam.  

Ergates

Eyeful said:

1. You say you know him & trust him. Speak to him directly & have him tell you  the name, sort code, and account number  he wants you to pay the money into.

2. If he does not want to give you this info to get your £700, then you will have a  reason to think something dodgy is going on.

3. If he does not know what you are talking about, you will know its a scam.  

He *did* give the OP his name, sort code and account number.... that's what prompted the question in the first place.