Fraud / scam victim advice required

[fullyautomatix]

This type of email scam has been around for a couple of years at least. You probably lost 5k but last year there was a case of a person buying a house, scammer sent a spoofed email purporting to come from her solicitor with bank instructions to send deposit money to. Loss was about 200k from what I recall. The main problem is banks may not take responsibility if you willingly transferred the money between accounts.

[SandyD]

You need to treat this like a business transaction - do not let it be personal.

Agreed !

[fiisch]

Thanks for the reply fiisch, I will report to action fraud, I only reported to bank and met police.

Yes my bank I the list.

The only thing that was out of behaviour is the fact that this was a prepaid card, and believe overseas...
will make complaint to financial ombudsman!

First complain to the bank directly - you have to give them an opportunity to resolve before escalating to the FOS, and hey, they might surprise you. If the bank is on that list, when they investigate a bit further, they might decide you're covered under their new compensation scheme.... might be wishful thinking, but worth a try.

Only once the bank has issued a final response can you escalate to the FOS if you're still not happy. My advice is to avoid FOS escalation if you can - it is a very slow process, their response can be unpredictable, and there were delays deciding on my case due to the sheer volume of fraud-related cases the FOS receives, and apparently they are currently reviewing how they approach as a whole.

Most reputable banks will do their utmost to avoid you going to the FOS if they can - depending on the sums involved, their internal process may be able to help you, but FOS is there as a backup in case not.

Seems to be fairly common -
Email hacking fraud hits home renovators: 'I paid GBP10,800 to a bogus builder'

[xoggoth]

Sorry to hear this. This sort of thing worries me esp. as I will be paying about £45k to help my son buy a flat soon. I tend to transfer small amounts to a setup payee and check it's received first.

[SandyD]

First complain to the bank directly - you have to give them an opportunity to resolve before escalating to the FOS, and hey, they might surprise you. If the bank is on that list, when they investigate a bit further, they might decide you're covered under their new compensation scheme.... might be wishful thinking, but worth a try.

Only once the bank has issued a final response can you escalate to the FOS if you're still not happy. My advice is to avoid FOS escalation if you can - it is a very slow process, their response can be unpredictable, and there were delays deciding on my case due to the sheer volume of fraud-related cases the FOS receives, and apparently they are currently reviewing how they approach as a whole.

Most reputable banks will do their utmost to avoid you going to the FOS if they can - depending on the sums involved, their internal process may be able to help you, but FOS is there as a backup in case not.

Seems to be fairly common -
Email hacking fraud hits home renovators: 'I paid GBP10,800 to a bogus builder'

I had the bank investigating and they couldn’t retrieve any money, so you think now I should issue an official complaint to the bank before going to the ombudsman, right!

Builder just text me and said he was told ( by his sister who is a fraud investigator) that he is not at fault and I still owe him the money.

I also spoke to a solicitor just now, he said it would be very difficult to proof if his account was hacked or mine I.e my emails were intercepted/ diverted, so need and IT expert, he said if we go court route it would be very difficult for me to proof it’s the Builder’s fault and am still under obligation to pay him.

He said my only option is to complain to the bank but as I willingly transferred the money, my case is weak!

Any IT experts here can tell me how to prove if it’s my email that was hacked?

[SandyD]

Sorry to hear this. This sort of thing worries me esp. as I will be paying about £45k to help my son buy a flat soon. I tend to transfer small amounts to a setup payee and check it's received first.

Yes I do that usually, but that morning I was blind sided with other matters like brothers passing away and putting a few things together to travel, securing transport to airport etc etc

[Paddy]

I had the bank investigating and they couldn’t retrieve any money, so you think now I should issue an official complaint to the bank before going to the ombudsman, right!

Builder just text me and said he was told ( by his sister who is a fraud investigator) that he is not at fault and I still owe him the money.

I also spoke to a solicitor just now, he said it would be very difficult to proof if his account was hacked or mine I.e my emails were intercepted/ diverted, so need and IT expert, he said if we go court route it would be very difficult for me to proof it’s the Builder’s fault and am still under obligation to pay him.

He said my only option is to complain to the bank but as I willingly transferred the money, my case is weak!

Any IT experts here can tell me how to prove if it’s my email that was hacked?

I doubt if it was caused by an email hack. Most of these scams are an inside job.

[SandyD]

Paddy, what do u mean inside job?

[tazdevil]

At the moment the facts are.

1) You had some work done
2) You paid as per requested by the builder (to the best of your knowledge)
3) the builder is now saying you haven't paid
4) you have evidence that you paid as requested


IMO you are not a victim of fraud... yet.....

The builder is the victim of fraud. Or may be the fraudster.
Don't pay him any more money. Let him start the legal proceedings on you. You've paid as requested.

I agree. Escalate with your bank and report it but don't pay anything until the facts are known and you've been ordered to pay again by a court. If this guys email account has been hacked there will be other evidence of this and you can prove your account isn't at fault from the information in the headers which should include the IP address trail and other information. Sounds like a scam that the builder is part off but it's unlikely he sent an invoice sans bank details and then had his account hacked for just this one fraud where the scammer knew all the relevant detail

Whose bank account did you actually pay into, has the bank fessed up as to the actual account holder?

[original PM]

Paddy, what do u mean inside job?

He wanted a free holiday in portugal from you.