Investment Scam Ads still on Facebook

Liathanail

Posting because my elderly mother (she’s 79) has just been caught out by an “investment” ad on Facebook featuring Piers Morgan. The ad appeared on her Facebook feed in late January. I know this is something that MSE have campaigned against and tried to get Facebook to take responsibility as a publisher to properly police on their site. Clearly it is still happening as she fell victim to this scam by clicking on an ad that came up in her Facebook feed. I’d be interested to know what has happened with Facebook since the campaign.

It’s all a very predictable boiler room scam. She ended up being contacted via WhatsApp by an “investment manager” calling himself Marcus who installed AnyDesk Remote Desktop application on her phone and iPad and talked her into “investing” £200 via a transfer from her Capital One credit card. A day later she was contacted by Stephen, also via WhatsApp who claimed he had an AI version of the investment software and she could upgrade her account. He would get Marcus to send her back her £200 and open a new account, but it was best to do it quickly as the AI trading software was so much better. She made a second payment of £200 on her Capital One credit card. As soon as she got off of the call “Stephen” deleted all of his details from WhatsApp.

She has since been getting multiple calls a day to WhatsApp (up to 20 a day) so her details have clearly been passed on. She has also had an email from Marcus claiming she needs to contact him urgently regarding a lawsuit that may affect her account. Thankfully she became suspicious when Stephen took the money and promptly deleted his WhatsApp and she contacted Capital One to report it and cancel her card. They sent her forms to fill in and send back which I helped her with at the end of the first week of February. These forms are very limited and only allow you to claim for fraud, not scams. They do not have a dedicated form or number for reporting scams. I’ve also reported to Action Fraud.

Unfortunately Capital One are being very obstructive. They denied the fraud claim initially stating that my mother authorised the payment and that the investment company provided the investment account and it therefore wasn’t fraud. I helped compose a response pointing out that no account details were provided to her and that she was never given either a website link, account number or password as this was not actually an investment company and no investment account exists because it’s a scam. The company they claimed to be from is powered-affinity.com.

They responded a second time on 17th February denying the claim and stated that they were unable to recognise it as fraud as she was involved in the transaction and provided her card details willingly and that she authorised the transaction as part of an investment for personal gain. They provided an alternative email address (scamsreviewteamuk@capitalone.com) to provide more information to if she believed that would change the outcome. I again helped her compose an email covering the sequence of events which she sent to that address on 25th February. Other than an automated acknowledgment stating that they are dealing with a high volume of emails she has received no further response. 

They will not discuss this on the telephone with her and she has tried to email again with no reply. Is anyone able to provide any advice on where she can go from here? She has been making the minimum payment on her card balance in February and March but it will be extremely difficult for her to find £400 to clear the balance as she is on the basic state pension only.

I understood that Capital One is signed up to scam prevention and claims to protect its customers but they so not appear to do so. I also believe that as two payments to a random company in Istanbul of £200 each is extremely unusual activity for my mother, as she usually only uses her credit card to buy from Amazon or Argos, that these payments should have been flagged as suspicious and blocked at the time.

Any advice you can provide would be much appreciated as we really are stuck as Capital One are refusing to even speak to her. They keep saying that they have an high volume of cases, and to wait for an email. Yes, it was her own fault and she should have known better. I am only posting in case anyone has any information on how she might be able to recover the money. Is it relevant that she signed up for an investment account and was never provided any account details, would that count as not providing the service that she paid for? The initial refusal email stated that she was provided access to the trading platform even though I had already informed them that she wasn’t. 

In any case I assume it is helpful to share this information, as Facebook are clearly continuing not to take any action on scam adverts on their platform.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice!

elsien

She has challenged their decision but was it worded to make it clear that she was making a complaint? Random payments to Istanbul you would have thought would have triggered something. 
Next step would be financial ombudsman, but they aren't quick either. 

DjangoUnchained

probably not great advice but stop paying capital one, tell them she's not going to pay them a penny and let them sue a 79 yr old lady for £400 ?

dunstonh

Half the adverts on Facebook are scams.

Liathanail

@elsien, when she got the email with the decision the first time there were several inaccuracies in the explanation of why they refused the claim. I helped her with an email response pointing out that the statements that they were using to justify the decision were incorrect. For example, they stated that she registered for an online trading account which she was provided with, and what happened with the subsequent trades wasn’t their responsibility. She was never provided with a trading account. No login, no website, no account details.

The second refusal was even less detailed. It stated that it wasn’t a fraudulent transaction as she authorised the transaction for the purposes of investing for personal gain. This email gave a new email address to contact if you have further information that you believe would change their decision and was specifically for scams (scamsreviewteamuk@capitalone.com). She sent a detailed email (which I wrote) to that address on 25th February. The automated response said to expect a reply within 14 days. She sent all the details about getting her to download a Remote Desktop app on her phone (she had no idea what this was and they told her it was to set up her account) which was recording everything and sending transcripts to them which is a clear indication of a scam.

Do you think it is worth raising a separate complaint about the way they have handled it? So far we have filled in the disputed transaction form and then responded to the emails regarding the case.

Liathanail

dunstonh said:

Half the adverts on Facebook are scams.

You and I both know that, she didn’t.

born_again

Sadly you will not like this.

Banks class fraud, when a unknown 3rd party has used your card details. So, sorry this is not fraud.
It could possibly be disputed. But all the company have to do is provide her details & dispute is lost.

As to not paying them. If any payments go into the account. Then they have their money back.

Liathanail

@born_again I am well aware of what counts as fraud and what doesn’t. At no point has she claimed this was fraud. She has been very specific in saying she was scammed. Two different things.

Unfortunately, despite signing up to the scam protection scheme Capital One has no way to report when you have been scammed. The only form they have for these situations is a Fraudulent Transaction form where you are instructed to choose the ‘Other’ option and then type a description of what happened into the text box. We asked about this on the initial call where she stopped her card and we were told they hadn’t yet set up a specific form for scams. After submittIng the form, it was rejected for not meeting the criteria for a fraudulent transaction.

Incidentally, Capital One has two categories of fraudulent transactions. The first is the one you mentioned where a third party uses your card details without your authorisation. But the second is where you authorise payment to a company for goods or services which they fail to deliver, or which are not as described. So in this case it would fall under the second category as she purchased an investment account but was not provided with any way to access this account or any account details.

Sg28

dunstonh said:

Half the adverts on Facebook are scams.

In all honesty thats probably being optimistic.

Now with Zuckerberg going along with trumps anti truth sentiments and ditching its independent fact checkers, the problem will only get worse. 

etienneg

Please don't think I'm being critical of you or your mother in what I am about to say. I am very sorry to read what has happened and as a society we should be doing all we can to defeat these parasites. Unfortunately that's not always easy.

You say: "it will be extremely difficult for her to find £400 to clear the balance as she is on the basic state pension only." If this is the case, what was she going to do with an investment account? Why did she even click on the advert in the first place?

Liathanail

DjangoUnchained said:

probably not great advice but stop paying capital one, tell them she's not going to pay them a penny and let them sue a 79 yr old lady for £400 ?

Sadly that would absolutely trash her credit rating.