Faster payment scam - wedding dress

Mads15

Looking for a little bit of hope while I wait for the banks decision on a wedding dress scam. 

I went to my wedding dress appointment, staff were lovely, found the dress and was very happy. 

I'd replied to an email from the shop to say I'll go ahead with the dress and we exchanged a few emails back and forth. 

A few weeks pass and they reply to the email thread asking me to pay deposit, so I did. Then stupidly, when they asked for final payment, I made it. 

It turns out that when I went down to the shop this week, I'd not paid them, other than a scammer who had cloned their account and replied on the email thread. 

The scammer even was booking me in for appointments to follow up and talking to me about my wedding as they were the shop owner. 

When I finally got in touch with shop owner the real one, they informed me no payment had been made and the final email they had from me was about 4 weeks ago. 

Feel very stupid, and I'm really vigilant - banks been notified, suppose I'm just here to rant and feel a little sorry for myself! 

Any know how likely i am to get a refund? There were two payments, one £1000 and another £675.

DullGreyGuy

Mads15 said:

Looking for a little bit of hope while I wait for the banks decision on a wedding dress scam. 

I went to my wedding dress appointment, staff were lovely, found the dress and was very happy. 

I'd replied to an email from the shop to say I'll go ahead with the dress and we exchanged a few emails back and forth. 

A few weeks pass and they reply to the email thread asking me to pay deposit, so I did. Then stupidly, when they asked for final payment, I made it. 

It turns out that when I went down to the shop this week, I'd not paid them, other than a scammer who had cloned their account and replied on the email thread. 

The scammer even was booking me in for appointments to follow up and talking to me about my wedding as they were the shop owner. 

When I finally got in touch with shop owner the real one, they informed me no payment had been made and the final email they had from me was about 4 weeks ago. 

Feel very stupid, and I'm really vigilant - banks been notified, suppose I'm just here to rant and feel a little sorry for myself! 

Any know how likely i am to get a refund? There were two payments, one £1000 and another £675.

Do you know the shops website address?

The emails you were going backwards and forwards on, not the original one, what email address was that? 

Who's named did they say the bank account was in? Is it the name of the company or someone's personal name? Did your banks system confirm if the target bank account matched the name you were entering as who you wanted to pay?

Mads15

Yes so the email address is an exact match from the shop, and the payment details matched when I went to make payment it was a personal account but just thought it was for the shop owner as I've paid for services using personal accounts before. 

But the account is a UK starling account

itsthelittlethings

Something is up, someone must have known you were using the shop. To get a phishing email from a big bank you happen to use, yes. A wedding dress shop, no.

Mads15

They replied to an email I'd already sent so guessing they cloned the account 

marcia_

Mads15 said:

They replied to an email I'd already sent so guessing they cloned the account 

Probably hacked. Have you asked the shop if they have had any problems with their email? Or is there 1 or more letter out in the email address etc? 

Mads15

We checked their email account and it's not showing a single email since a few weeks ago. So I think the hacker has possibly deleted it but apparently they can quite easily clone accounts

HampshireH

So what action are the shop taking?

Allegedly their email has been hacked
Emails have been diverted elsewhere for fake payments

This is unlikely to have just happened to you and will trash their reputation. What is their response to this? What security measures have they in place etc.

Did you pay by debit or credit card? What have your bank said when you reported it?

I would recommend posting this on the bank accounts board/getting it moved where you will get advice. 

Emmia

Mads15 said:

They replied to an email I'd already sent so guessing they cloned the account 

What do the email headers show? It's possible to make an email address "look" the same even though it's going to/from another place.

The address could appear to be User@mse.co.uk - but if you expand the headers, it's really scammer@scamsite.co.uk

Did you pay by bank transfer, or card (did you pay even a bit by card)?

If it was 100% bank transfer, then your money is almost certainly gone (there are no protections) - fintech banks like starling are unfortunately often used to create the receiving accounts for the money. 

Do you have wedding insurance that might cover this?

I'm disappointed in the dress shop though, surely they noticed a lack of email and payments coming in (I presume they have more than one customer?) and they didn't think there might be a scam afoot and to phone their customers?