Don't be fooled by cunning con artists

eskbanker wrote: »

Although your smug self-congratulation is amusing, it's misplaced - my point was (and is) that KYC doesn't entail knowing customers in the traditional sense of a personal relationship that's maintained face to face, i.e. talking about holidays and kids and so on, as would have been the case back in the Captain Mainwaring days.

You don't want to know about my holidays and kids?? You don't want to know how I will pay for them? Or maybe you have looked into my account and you know I can afford a six-month round the world cruise for the whole family so you won't be offering a loan? Is that it? You know perhaps that I have a joint savings account with my elderly mother who actually might be funding the cruise, and you overheard that she got tricked by a burglar last year who turned up in the back garden unannounced saying that they'd kicked a ball over and needed to recover it? And lo and behold behind the scenes whilst a distraction occurred, a second burglar came in at the front and ransacked the bedroom looking for valuables?

Oh sorry, you don't want to know all that, not even if the bank sold the insurance policy that eventually paid a pittance for lost jewellery that could never be replaced? Yada yada ... not your problem?

I'm not bypassing or waving anything, just highlighting the difference between customers interacting with a bank and fraudsters interacting with a bank. No doubt both happen but they're different, ...

Exactly, they are different, so why the hell does the bank lay its systems open to fraudsters after a modicom of trickery so easily being able to treat themselves as if they were the customer on the last day of their life on a spending spree? :mad:

eskbanker, I can tell (if you are indeed a banker) that you don't really even want to know about a customer, let alone act upon information you already have such as a joint account linked to a vulnerable person whose home insurance was claimed upon after it had been arranged by your bank - that's all information you are entitled to know and to process if you store it and process it correctly.

As you say: "Oh dear, difficult to know where to start with all that."Yes, especially if you have a mindset which does not wish to provide a decent well-rounded financial services customer service standard. If you are a banker, eskbanker, then you aren't bothered whether the customer or his mother ever darken your branch's doors again, eh? Or even whether they start to move their business frequently - that's a model your executive have created and optimised to avoid having to admit any costly social purposes associated with the bank's business.

Trust, loyalty and integrity are social concepts which one would hope are virtues displayed in any business relationship on both sides in some healthy balance. However, who has lately affirmed that banks value any of those in 2018? Certainly not the banks, especially when they are permitted to enter product arenas they aren't qualified in and permitted to play around with product understanding and ideas of compliance their executive and staff couldn't give two hoots about ever understanding technically- not even for the satisfaction of seeing those contracts perform and do good for customers. I am talking about insurance selling which UK retail banks have gorged themselves upon far too much in recent decades.

Independent high street insurance brokers really knew the difference required to actually get their customers to recommend them.

Banks haven't a clue how to ever achieve that again even in services that most people would say have always been core to banking, eh?

I say again, anyone who has been turned down by their bank for reimbursement after being confidence tricked should return to hammering the table at their bank again and simultaneously bring their case to MSE if the bank still will not listen.

That especially applies to Microsoft Tech Support Scam scenarios and the like.

I just successfully assisted in getting the entire £8,000 odd back for one vulnerable customer. And no she was not a building society customer. Once I saw how the scam was executed, I was quite confident I could persuade the bank. It took a few days back and forth, but other than us still needing to complete the reformatting of her PC so she can once more enter the fray if she feels up to it, then the ordeal is over for my friend. Ask yourselves whether you could do the same. Better still, ask your bank if you could do the same and don't let them get away with arm-waving. Ask for it in writing, and I do not mean T&Cs or PSR 2017 snippets, I mean useful example scenarios.

If our society needs to clarify what we mean by antisemitism with useful examples, I am sure we can tackle the job of clarifying banking fraud outcomes with a few useful examples too.

How about you experienced bankers and fraud department experts giving some clear examples, please? And no I am not asking you to lay out routes via which bent customers could try to trick banks. I am talking about examples where customers were thankful and where they were tearfully disappointed. Tell us please, what shape of case gets reimbursed and what doesn't in your books.

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

Anyway, the issue with this sort of scam is that it needs more 'prongs' to the defence. Yes, perhaps the banks can do something but we also need the telecoms companies and Microsoft to start coming out and telling people not to believe the caller.

Microsoft could surely build something into its windows system that would issue a warning at startup (and on opening a web browser) that they would never call to advise there is a system error or the like. BT (et al) could do likewise with their online offerings and include warnings with their paper bills.

I guess they aren't interested because they are not actually involved in the scams and don't have to pay out when money is stolen from people as a result - but perhaps they should be made to be more involved with the solution.

I agree, Terry T. That could possibly reduce the frequency of successful scams and allow banks to do the right thing instead of being so dismissive of the problem.