My Daughter and her boyfriend have been scammed

[ian]

Thinking about, back in olden times when we rented, we probably did let people look around at the end of our tenure, but only if the agency had confirmed everything. Had someone just turned up at the door, vampire or not, we'd have told them to piss off. And sprayed them with garlic-infused holy water just in case. There weren't many vampires in Shepherd's Bush (or Sheepy Tree, as we called it) mostly because of people like us.

I suppose it's modern times, but finding rentals on Facebook et c. seems like a recipe for disaster. At least estate agents are predictably annoying in their rip-offs. I remember when I first moved to London, back during the reign of King Arthur I think, and the first place I saw. A small cupboard in Paddington offered by an Albanian tyrant who wanted the deposit 'right then' or he'd let someone else take it. He said this while blocking the door. I'm not proud but I kicked him as hard as I could in the shin and ran off. After that, estates agents seemed, well, the safer of the two options. I'm just not Liam Neeson. I don't have that particular set of skills.

Mind you, it was running away from Albania tyrant landlords that landed me in a house full of late-night BBC continuity announcers.

[Karla]

It sounds like the current occupants are at least in on the scam.
If somebody turned up on my doorstep saying they wanted/expected to move in, I would sympathise with them and tell them they had been scammed. I wouldn't immediately accuse them of being fraudsters.

ditto.  What's more I wouldn't open the door anyway unless I expected viewers by an appointment with my normal contact.   Even if they did look harmless.

My landlords have sent random viewers round in the past. It’s common practice.

And look what happens! 

I've not rented for years.  I'm positive my first landlady (as it happens) would never have sent people knocking on the door to view without telling us and the 2nd (an agency) didn't either.

Altho' I am no lawyer I would suggest that whilst a landlord might claim the right to inspect his own property for maintenance purposes, viewers turning up without prior notice could abuse the right of the tenant to 'quiet enjoyment':

https://www.foxwilliams.com/news/704

but given the demand for housing I wouldn't be surprised to hear that tenants can't stand on their rights these days.

How many tenants do you think even know their rights?  The ones prepared to stand on them are a subset of those. 

Of course, cases like this are why I get pissed off with people who think it's more polite to let landlords routinely walk over due procedure.  They help create a culture where the vulnerable and the stupid can get more easily scammed

[Cudzoziemiec]

Certainly for student-type lets it would be common practice for unannounced viewers to arrive if you're moving out in the near future. But still something doesn't add up. Who actually was there when they viewed it? If it was the same people who later had the 'hissy fit' and accused them of being fraudsters, that's a bit inconsistent at least.

[Wascally Weasel]

I don't think that the reaction by the tenants is the one I would have expected from people who had no knowledge of the scam.

I've had various friends scammed in this way in the past but the reaction of tenants in the properties in question has been very different.  I would report them to the police also in that situation.

[dim]

Certainly for student-type lets it would be common practice for unannounced viewers to arrive if you're moving out in the near future. But still something doesn't add up. Who actually was there when they viewed it? If it was the same people who later had the 'hissy fit' and accused them of being fraudsters, that's a bit inconsistent at least.

The guy who scammed my daughter told her to go to the house and if the tenant was there, she should say that he (the Landlord) gives permission that she views it as she is keen to rent it

The guy was there, said no problem, and my daughter and her partner viewed the property. My daughter then told the guy that she is going to rent the property and will collect the keys from the tenant on Friday (tomorrow), as he is moving ot and should be done by 12pm

He said no probs

then, on Wednesday, the letting agent contacted the tenant and told him to drop off the keys at the office. He said no, my daughter (the new tenant) will be collecting the keys on Friday

All hell broke loose and the agent told the tenant that my daughter is trying to do fraud and that the real Landlord never gave permission.

They never exchanged phone numbers, so the tenant could not contact my daughter. After my daughter paid the deposit, she went around to the house with her partner, and the current tenant wanted to have a boxing match with my daughters partner, and even took photos of them, aswell as my daughters car number plate

this guy scamming has been doing it for a while now and has conned many people out of cash all over the country (loads of unhappy people on facebook)

The Police dont give a shit .... they could catch him if they really wanted to (from his IP address .... CCTV footage of the guy when he withdraws the money from a bank etc etc)

[Jaded]

The Police don't give a shit because.

Govt Cuts.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

..

The Police dont give a shit .... they could catch him if they really wanted to (from his IP address .... CCTV footage of the guy when he withdraws the money from a bank etc etc)

I would think someone who is a bit smart on the internet could be extremely hard to catch unfortunately. 

It's a simple matter to have a bank account and never go near a bank!  e.g. Atom Bank. It has no branches at all.

I'd love to suggest how this scammer could be caught, I was a victim of a not dissimilar scam involving car adverts, pre-internet. I was just lucky it wasn't such a large sum.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Perhaps not so much that the police don't give a shit, more that the toilet is broken and they're not allowed to call dyno-rod.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Certainly for student-type lets it would be common practice for unannounced viewers to arrive if you're moving out in the near future. But still something doesn't add up. Who actually was there when they viewed it? If it was the same people who later had the 'hissy fit' and accused them of being fraudsters, that's a bit inconsistent at least.

The guy who scammed my daughter told her to go to the house and if the tenant was there, she should say that he (the Landlord) gives permission that she views it as she is keen to rent it

The guy was there, said no problem, and my daughter and her partner viewed the property. My daughter then told the guy that she is going to rent the property and will collect the keys from the tenant on Friday (tomorrow), as he is moving ot and should be done by 12pm

He said no probs

then, on Wednesday, the letting agent contacted the tenant and told him to drop off the keys at the office. He said no, my daughter (the new tenant) will be collecting the keys on Friday

All hell broke loose and the agent told the tenant that my daughter is trying to do fraud and that the real Landlord never gave permission.

They never exchanged phone numbers, so the tenant could not contact my daughter. After my daughter paid the deposit, she went around to the house with her partner, and the current tenant wanted to have a boxing match with my daughters partner, and even took photos of them, aswell as my daughters car number plate

this guy scamming has been doing it for a while now and has conned many people out of cash all over the country (loads of unhappy people on facebook)

The Police dont give a shit .... they could catch him if they really wanted to (from his IP address .... CCTV footage of the guy when he withdraws the money from a bank etc etc)

If I understand that correctly, it sounds to me like the tenant is probably not in on it, just took your daughter's assurance about landlord at face value.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Certainly for student-type lets it would be common practice for unannounced viewers to arrive if you're moving out in the near future. But still something doesn't add up. Who actually was there when they viewed it? If it was the same people who later had the 'hissy fit' and accused them of being fraudsters, that's a bit inconsistent at least.

The guy who scammed my daughter told her to go to the house and if the tenant was there, she should say that he (the Landlord) gives permission that she views it as she is keen to rent it

The guy was there, said no problem, and my daughter and her partner viewed the property. My daughter then told the guy that she is going to rent the property and will collect the keys from the tenant on Friday (tomorrow), as he is moving ot and should be done by 12pm

He said no probs

then, on Wednesday, the letting agent contacted the tenant and told him to drop off the keys at the office. He said no, my daughter (the new tenant) will be collecting the keys on Friday

All hell broke loose and the agent told the tenant that my daughter is trying to do fraud and that the real Landlord never gave permission.

They never exchanged phone numbers, so the tenant could not contact my daughter. After my daughter paid the deposit, she went around to the house with her partner, and the current tenant wanted to have a boxing match with my daughters partner, and even took photos of them, aswell as my daughters car number plate

this guy scamming has been doing it for a while now and has conned many people out of cash all over the country (loads of unhappy people on facebook)

The Police dont give a shit .... they could catch him if they really wanted to (from his IP address .... CCTV footage of the guy when he withdraws the money from a bank etc etc)

Ok - I understand now. The tenant was naive, but it sounds like they weren't 'in on it'.

I don't agree with you about the police (being able to catch him if they wanted). IP addresses - the only contact so far has been via Facebook or email. That doesn't give an IP address of a house or other location. The scammer doesn't need to go into a bank to get the money - he'll just use internet banking to move it round. So how are the police going to catch this person?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

.. The scammer doesn't need to go into a bank to get the money - he'll just use internet banking to move it round. So how are the police going to catch this person?

Well obviously the same way they catch all those money launderers.

[Paul H]

I'd follow up if the bank can do anything, I know they can suspend a payment if it's made in error, as it happened to me when some stranger transferred a considerable sum of money to my business account. I was contacted and asked if I would accept it's return. in the meantime I couldn't withdraw it.  Money may of course be well gone, I'm just a little surprised they advised there was nothing they could do. I thought one of the reasons it's harder to set up a bank account than it was in the past was to trace such scams.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I'd follow up if the bank can do anything, I know they can suspend a payment if it's made in error, as it happened to me when some stranger transferred a considerable sum of money to my business account. I was contacted and asked if I would accept it's return. in the meantime I couldn't withdraw it.  Money may of course be well gone, I'm just a little surprised they advised there was nothing they could do. I thought one of the reasons it's harder to set up a bank account than it was in the past was to trace such scams.

You mean like a credit card transaction where card providers offer protection for the holder's loss?  Nice idea!

[lahoski]

I don't know if I'm being a prat. If I am please enlighten me. But. If your daughter transferred money to a UK bank account, surely that's an easy-peasy way for 'them'* to identify the scammer... if they want to. They don't just hand out bank accounts without proof of ID for exactly this kind of reason.

*police or whatevs.

[rogerzilla]

The £20m went through four accounts and was out of the country within 20 minutes.  They recruit "mules" to make their accounts available for such scams, and they're left to face the music.

[Paul H]

I'd follow up if the bank can do anything, I know they can suspend a payment if it's made in error, as it happened to me when some stranger transferred a considerable sum of money to my business account. I was contacted and asked if I would accept it's return. in the meantime I couldn't withdraw it.  Money may of course be well gone, I'm just a little surprised they advised there was nothing they could do. I thought one of the reasons it's harder to set up a bank account than it was in the past was to trace such scams.

You mean like a credit card transaction where card providers offer protection for the holder's loss?  Nice idea!

No I mean like this
http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/consumers/what-happens-if-i-have-sent-payment-wrong-place

The intention is to reclaim money sent to the wrong recipient, so I don't know if it's applicable in this case, but the mechanism for suspending withdrawal exists.

[Pickled Onion]

Nope, I can't see where it says that.

I can see where it says treat a faster payment as if you were handing over cash, and where it says if you accidentally send money to an honest person you will get it back after a month or so. But basically if you send money to a fraudster you can FRO as far as the banks are concerned

[ian]

I'm not sure why the banks should police this – to them it's a legitimate transaction. If I lend someone £50 and they go 'ha ha, you ain't getting that back' I can hardly go to the bank and demand they reimburse me because I used their cash machine to take the money out of my account. If I buy a banger that goes all clown car on my driveway... you get the idea. Unless the police ask for help within whatever bounds they have, of course.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but there's an element of caveat emptor here, if you hand over money to essentially an unknown stranger with no due diligence (a simple Google search here would have dished the dirt) then I have some money from my dead uncle I need help getting out of the country.

[dim]

My daughter's Bank (Barclays) says that the matter was handed over to Barclay's Fraud Department, but because she done a bank transfer, there is nothing that they can do as she gave 'permission' to barclays to transfer the cash.

Lloyds bank (where the frauster had an account) says that they cannot help my daughter and that the money was withdrawn minutes after my daughter transferred the money

The police were no help, but did take a statement.

My daughter then phoned the Banking Ombudsman, and he was very helpful. He said that my daughter must write a complaint letter to Barclays saying that they were not very helpful. They have 8 working days to respond, then my daughter must contact the Ombudsman and if it can be proved that Barclays did not do their utmost to recover the money, there may be a case

If the money was withdrawn over the counter, it would have been withdrawn in a bank which has CCTV and if Barclays has not made an effort to view the footage, (or obtain the footage and hand it over to the police), it can be said that Barclays never tried their best .... If it was transfered to another bank, then another bank etc before it was withdrawn, did Barclays follow the trail? .... if not .... we may have a case that Barclays just shrugged it off

The fraudsters phone number, aswell as his IP address from the email he sent (with the fake tenancy agreement), was also handed over to Barclays and the police (The IP address is in Birmingham)

Lloyds refuse to speak to my daughter directly, because she is not their client (WTF)

but I'm not holding my breath (The police have also not contacted us, but to be honest, I don't think that the police really cared that much)

and in the meantime, the fraudster is still scamming people daily. I always said that I never understood how people can be frauded by Nigerian scams etc, but this one fooled me .... the guy is very clever and there are many people on facebook who have fallen for the same scam

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

It'll be a very bad day when people can't live their lives without Facebook!

I have an account but it's in a state of suspended animation.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Hang on - I didn't realise you had an email address for this person.

That might make tracing them easier.

Please pm it to me, I have an idea that might work, if this person has been stupid.

[Pickled Onion]

I'm not sure why the banks should police this – to them it's a legitimate transaction. If I lend someone £50 and they go 'ha ha, you ain't getting that back' I can hardly go to the bank and demand they reimburse me because I used their cash machine to take the money out of my account. If I buy a banger that goes all clown car on my driveway... you get the idea. Unless the police ask for help within whatever bounds they have, of course.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but there's an element of caveat emptor here, if you hand over money to essentially an unknown stranger with no due diligence (a simple Google search here would have dished the dirt) then I have some money from my dead uncle I need help getting out of the country.

There are many things the banks can do in general, and they are resisting. Every week there are cases in the back pages of the Guardian about people losing five-figure sums in bank transfer fraud.

The most glaring problem is that all that's required for a transfer is the account and sort code. You are asked to enter the account name, but you can put anything you like in there, it's completely ignored. The banks argue it's a tricky problem — is the account in the name JOHN SMITH or J SMITH or JR SMITH AND JP SMITH, etc. I don't think this is an insurmountable problem. They could run a pattern match and if over a certain percentage return the actual account name for you to verify. So if you've entered JON SMYTH it returns the actual account name, if you've entered MJN SOLICITORS it simply says no. This would also help where people have got the numbers wrong by mistake.

Another issue seems to be the ease with which fraudsters seem to be able to open multiple single-use accounts. You and I seem to have to jump through hoops to open an account, so how do the scammers seem to have no problem at all?

One common factor with these scams is that the money hits the empty account and is transferred out immediately and the account is dropped. Surely this is an obvious pattern that could be detected and flagged to a human to investigate before the money's allowed out?

[Polar Bear]

The banks will only be bothered when the loss sits on them.   A simple law change  making liability rest with the issuing bank unless proven otherwise would have a drastic and immediate effect.

I get the impression that there is very little behind the scenes cooperation between the banks these days.   This was different 25 years ago.

[Pickled Onion]

If the money was withdrawn over the counter

It won't have been, nor will it have been withdrawn from an ATM. It will have been transferred to another account, then to another undoubtedly in another country.

it can be said that Barclays never tried their best

In the cases I mentioned above, Barclays seem to be the worst of the lot. And they carry on doing the same thing regardless. Sorry, but the fact is you're extremely unlikely to see the money again.

[dim]

Hang on - I didn't realise you had an email address for this person.

That might make tracing them easier.

Please pm it to me, I have an idea that might work, if this person has been stupid.

pm sent