Spoken to bank re losing money to remote working scam - what next ?

deejaybee

Hi all,

Embarrassed to admit that i have been fooled by a remote working scam ( lost £2200 )

Have spoken to First Direct about it today, given them all details, and they will get back to me in next couple of weeks ( No blame at all attached to them, so i doubt if i  will be re-imbursed, but you never know )

I started an ActionFraud report, but it is just for reporting purposes, they dont do any investigation, so im not sure what use it would be ?

I wont go into the actual scam just yet, but i was initally contacted via Whatsapp ( red flag i know now ) by someone representing First Recruitment Services, i checked a found that it was a legit agency, but stupidly ( at this stage ) i didnt contact them to establish that the person who contacted me actually worked for them.

The scammers want me to deposit another large sum next Tuesday, i am obviously not doing that but have left the lines of communication open for now, in case there is anything i can do, though presumably the telephone numbers used are dodgy.

Dont know what else to do for now, once Tuesday comes round will block and report the Whatsapp numbers ( probably a waste of time )

eskbanker

deejaybee said:

Have spoken to First Direct about it today, given them all details, and they will get back to me in next couple of weeks ( No blame at all attached to them, so i doubt if i  will be re-imbursed, but you never know )

Even if First Direct weren't at fault, that doesn't mean that they're not liable to reimburse you, given all banks' responsibilities under APP scam regulations, so perhaps worth familiarising yourself with these:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/10/bank-transfer-scam-refund-rules/

Presumably you sent the money via bank transfer?  Did the Confirmation of Payee check work as expected, i.e. was the destination account named the same as the company name?

MyRealNameToo

deejaybee said:

Embarrassed to admit that i have been fooled by a remote working scam ( lost £2200 )

Have spoken to First Direct about it today, given them all details, and they will get back to me in next couple of weeks ( No blame at all attached to them, so i doubt if i  will be re-imbursed, but you never know )

I started an ActionFraud report, but it is just for reporting purposes, they dont do any investigation, so im not sure what use it would be ?

I wont go into the actual scam just yet, but i was initally contacted via Whatsapp ( red flag i know now ) by someone representing First Recruitment Services, i checked a found that it was a legit agency, but stupidly ( at this stage ) i didnt contact them to establish that the person who contacted me actually worked for them.

The scammers want me to deposit another large sum next Tuesday, i am obviously not doing that but have left the lines of communication open for now, in case there is anything i can do, though presumably the telephone numbers used are dodgy.

Dont know what else to do for now, once Tuesday comes round will block and report the Whatsapp numbers ( probably a waste of time )

It can happen to anyone, first hand watched a bloke with 20 years experience in financial services get duped by a push fraud scam. He's an intelligent guy, he's warned his kids many times about scams (he says) but they got him at the right/wrong (matter of perspective) time and he transferred them £20k or so. 


So, how did you actually make the payment? Was it a bank transfer or debit card payment? 

If it was a bank transfer then its likely to come under the Authorised Push Payment scam rules https://www.psr.org.uk/information-for-consumers/app-fraud-reimbursement-protections/ and your bank has 5 working days to reimburse you in but they can withhold £100 of it as an excess. 

If it was a debit card then they will likely do a chargeback on it which is a much longer process but most refund you straight away on the caveat you will be recharged if the chargeback fails. 

deejaybee

Thanks for speedy replies both - much appreciated.

First Direct have actually already got back to me - their decision was that they could not reimburse me because i sent the funds from FD account in my name to a Coinbase account also in my name.

The payments to the scam had to be made in crypto ( i already had a crypto account from a few years ago with just a bit of shrapnel in it )

Contacted Coinbase, as crpto payments are irreversible, nothing they can do, they have sent me email with links about reporting to authorities but i havnt had chance to go through it yet.

eskbanker

Ah, that information puts a rather different perspective on things!

FD indeed won't have any liability for a transfer to another account of yours - I don't know enough about protections in crypto world but it's not renowned for regulatory control and consumer rights....

Eyeful

Any time someone want you to send them money, or your personal details, should act as Red Flag one.
Money has to be sent via bank transfer is Red Flag two
Needing you to act quickly or miss an opportunity, is Red Flag three.

Slow down and think before transferring money, not after.   

Ignore adverts on social media.

deejaybee

I wasnt even looking for a job to be honest, had been Self Employed for around 12 years previous, hadnt interacted with any job agencies in that time... BUT,  if i had contacted the agency mentioned , it wouldnt have gone any further...

*** when it hit me that it was suspect - contacted the actual agency who confirmed that one of "Emily" name worked there, and they had similar calls. I forwarded the Whatapp message to them, and they said it would be passed to their MD ***  

Dosnt help me , but if it stops even one person getting caught, will be worthwhile.

eskbanker

Out of curiosity, what was it that you were expecting to get for your initial £2200 (and subsequent instalments)?

And how did the scammers explain the necessity to use crypto payment?

deejaybee

The remote work was " Rating Amazon products " 

They were using the name of  FEEDVISOR -  i think they are actually a legit company that they have piggy backed on.

They were using feedvisor-scale.com - probably a derivative of the legit website - another obvious red flag that i missed,,,

MyRealNameToo

eskbanker said:

Ah, that information puts a rather different perspective on things!

FD indeed won't have any liability for a transfer to another account of yours - I don't know enough about protections in crypto world but it's not renowned for regulatory control and consumer rights....

Sounds like you know the full extent of protections that exist @e@eskbanker

deejaybee said:

The payments to the scam had to be made in crypto ( i already had a crypto account from a few years ago with just a bit of shrapnel in it )

No bricks and motar business is going to say payments have to be in crypto other than the very edge cases like someone selling NFTs possibly which are equally vapourware. 

Some companies may accept crypto as a payment method, sure many of us know of the story of the guy who bought a pizza with bitcoin, but it's alongside regular payment methodologies. 

There are plenty of non-legitimate businesses that accept only crypto but they typically sell the types of products or services that you can't then go to ActionFraud to complain about. 

Eyeful

What two website checkers think of  feedvisor-scale.com
https://www.scam-detector.com/validator/feedvisor-scale-com-review/
https://www.scamdoc.com/view/2336779