Being Paid in small duplicate amounts. Why would somebody do this? Claim Back Later?

BenjyBoo

My partner is being paid back for an item he gave back in a private sale.

The seller has the item back and have been paying him back in small amounts like follows:

£20.00 then a couple of minutes later 3x £200.00 

a day later £20.00

two days later 2x £30.00 

The buyer then said they couldn't pay the rest because they had got a "payment cancelled" screen asking if it could be fraud.

Which is no wonder by making all these silly little payments instead of paying him back the full amount.

Then today another 2x £25 went in one after the other.

The full amount is still not received, the seller still says they will pay in full and will not explain while they are paying like this.  

Are they up to something? Is this a method that they can use to get the bank to drawer the money back at a later date?

MisterMotivated

It does sound rather suspicious.  Are all the payments coming from the same account number?  Also, how much in total is your partner expecting to receive?  It could be the seller hoping your partner loses track of how much has been paid, or it could be something more sinister.  Or there could be a legitimate explanation for it...

boingy

I agree that this is odd and it does set my scam detector beeping, but I can't really see the scam. Maybe they hope to underpay, either by the recipient losing track of the total or by making the recipient feel that they are dealing with a crazy person and thus deciding they will settle for a bit less than the full refund for an easy life. 

Maybe the seller will report a scam to the bank and point at all the frequent, small payments but I'm not sure they'd make that stick.

Or maybe it's all above board and has a legitimate reason, although in that case it would be reasonable to share that reason with the confused recipient.

@BenjyBoo, how was the original payment made and what platform/marketplace hosted the sale?

COIAHLGW

I would have him create a new backup current account with a new banking group just in case, so it is all up and running and available in case the original account is locked.

badmemory

More like he has nothing in his bank account until he gets paid by someone & is then making a payment, then recieves a payment so making a payment.  I would not be holding my breath as if your payment was large the bank probably said oh great overdraft cleared cancel the overdraft.

M25

What sort of private sale?

I don't see anything suspicious it sounds like as soon as the seller has money he's giving it to you.

BenjyBoo

MisterMotivated said:

It does sound rather suspicious.  Are all the payments coming from the same account number?  Also, how much in total is your partner expecting to receive?  It could be the seller hoping your partner loses track of how much has been paid, or it could be something more sinister.  Or there could be a legitimate explanation for it...

Yes, all the payments are coming from the same account. He is expecting £1500. 

BenjyBoo

boingy said:

I agree that this is odd and it does set my scam detector beeping, but I can't really see the scam. Maybe they hope to underpay, either by the recipient losing track of the total or by making the recipient feel that they are dealing with a crazy person and thus deciding they will settle for a bit less than the full refund for an easy life. 

Maybe the seller will report a scam to the bank and point at all the frequent, small payments but I'm not sure they'd make that stick.

Or maybe it's all above board and has a legitimate reason, although in that case it would be reasonable to share that reason with the confused recipient.

@BenjyBoo, how was the original payment made and what platform/marketplace hosted the sale?

Some replies think perhaps they are paying when they get a bit of money in their account. But that still wouldn't explain why they make 3x £200 payments within 5 minutes and the 2x£25 within 2 minutes, then another 2x£30 within 2 minutes. I guess they're doing it to be a nuisance, get out of paying the full amount, or think we don't have a brain/calculator to work it out.  

As per the screen shot I received from them I gather they are making these payments with their mobile banking app. Naturally they would be logging in with their security credentials and have been for the last 7 days of making these small payments, so I can't see how they could get the bank to claim it back. So I hope I am worrying for nothing.

BenjyBoo

COIAHLGW said:

I would have him create a new backup current account with a new banking group just in case, so it is all up and running and available in case the original account is locked.

Could this really happen, by giving your name and bank account number for someone to pay you back? Why would my account get locked because someone is playing silly games and paying me back in small suspicious looking amounts? I didn't think about that, I was just worried about my partner using the money and then the sellers bank drawing it back.

saajan_12

Perhaps their method of payment has certain limits per transaction which they're trying to stay below. Eg they might have tried £1000 first and got rejected, so tried again with a couple of smaller ones. 

Feels even with that they wouldn't get to quite so many small installments, but maybe their logic is very 'one (small) step at a time'. 

In any case, what can you really do other than wait for it to come in and if not then add up the total and claim the deficit via a money claim online if needed. 

Ritusrex

Why not try asking the person direct for the reason they're paying this way?