Why should banks have to refund?

I feel there are a few very harsh posts on here towards the VICTIMS of scams.

The scammers deserve the abuse, not the innocent folk in these despicable crime.

There but for the grace of God.

NotAGran55

I feel there are a few very harsh posts on here towards the VICTIMS of scams.

The scammers deserve the abuse, not the innocent folk in these despicable crime.

There but for the grace of God.

No, I disagree - and agree at the same time.

Yes, the scammers deserve abuse. At the same time, a growing number of the abused have acted foolishly, ignoring all the screaming alarm bells that they being scammed, responding to scams that are so blatantly obvious they have no excuse for not knowing better - like my recent scam bank phone call, where the caller did not mention my name, what bank I was with, or give any details, just a phone number to ring. No one should respond to a call like that.

In every aspect of our lives, we are expected to be aware of common dangers, and avoid them. You would not walk up a motorway slip road and on to the carriage way. If a stranger walked up to you in the street and said you owed them £100, you would not immediately give them the money.

The internet has now been around for 30 plus years - and so have the scammers -. In newspapers, magazines, on TV, the radio, on Social media like GN and in general conversation there is a constant stream of publicity warning against scams, especially the most common ones.

Of course there will be a few people whose intellects are clouded, or are targetted with new very subtle means of scamming, but 90% plus of all scams are well known and obvious.

I have yet to be scammed of 1p. This doean't mean that it can never happen, but it will not be by one of the 90% of well known scams, so 'there but the grace of god, go I'? No.

I think most people think they are ‘above’ being scammed, until it happens.

I remember a thread on here, years ago, when someone was warning about a scam, and she was ridiculed. I can’t remember the detail, but it involved her husband, whom she defended against really vicious accusations of being a moron, and her defending him just made things worse. I think he’d given some sort of advice about doing or not doing something online, and it turned out he was mistaken. Not GN’s finest hour, but not untypical of the way Some Posters behave.

When we look at how many financial transactions some of us make online (for me, > 95% of what I buy, and 100% of my banking is online) it is all but inevitable that we will fall for something one day.

Yes, it’s obvious when you look back, but who hasn’t kicked themselves for human error at some point in their lives? Left a window open and gone out? Forgot to check a receipt- that sort of thing.

The romance scams are, IMO, very sad, as the victims don’t just lose their money, but their hopes of a new future, and on top of that, people think they are stupid. It must be humiliating and life-changing. The scammers are cruel, and very good at creating that feeling of limerence, where people really do believe that they and their new love are different from everyone else, and the only people in the world to feel as they do (check out popular songs to see how universal these feelings of being unique in love have always been). To crash down to earth and realise it was all a lie, and you never had lover and now have no money must be hideous. For those in relationships, or who have friends and family around them it can seem that anyone falling for these scams is barmy, but a bit of compassion goes a long way.

When a bank repeatedly warns people against doing something and they ignore the warnings I don’t think the banks should compensate - they can’t stop people spending their own money - but I do think that complacency is dangerous. Anyone can make a mistake and the fraudsters get more devious all the time.

SavvySago that made me laugh!

I got an email from ‘Audible’ last week saying my monthly subscription hadn’t gone through and to click here.

Yeah right. I’m not as green as I’m cabbage looking so I just deleted it.

Me again . I also think that laughing at people who get taken in can stop people feeling able to ask if they are unsure.

My mum was once unsure about whether something was a scam, and all of her children happened to be away (ie out of the country) at the time. She felt foolish for not knowing, and whilst we had all explained to her about not clicking links and checking websites the email was cleverly worded and she didn't know what to do. She was too embarrassed to ask outside the family for help, as she was used to people rolling their eyes at those who get caught out, and crowing about how they would never be a victim.

It's a shame that scammers can make people feel so unsure of themselves and incompetent. My mum is not stupid - she just wasn't brought up with IT and had retired when it became widespread.

She has paid the money willingly to the scammer. The bank queried the payments, but she ignored them. The loss is not the bank’s fault they shouldn’t pay.

This situation has become so serious with AI assisted scams. Radio 4 are doing a programme every day this week about how AI is being used used .. and may be used in the future..

But I also agree with most posters that if the Banks have issued warnings to payees then they shouldn't have to refund,

It is difficult to "be on the alert" all the darn time in case a person is a thief, rather than a normal person.

I guess that maybe these thieves rely on us being distracted on the one hand or having got dementia on the other hand. It is a nuisance having to be "on the ball" all the darn time - because there are thieves living in the world, as well as normal people. There's just so much of it too to evaluate - yep.....yet another email received from a thief this morning and duly deleted.

These thieves don't care we might fall victim to them - and maybe even hand over money we can't afford (ie because most of us aren't well-off and handing over spare money).

What these thieves obviously don't stop to think about (or, if they do, then they don't care) is even if we don't fall victim to them = we still steadily get more and more cynical about human nature and it's not nice to have to start with a default view of "maybe they are one of Them", rather than "here's another person and hopefully they'll be nice and honest etc etc and there's a fair chance they will be". It does make one shut off more (if only mentally) from the rest of the human race.

We look at the news and think "Loads of warmongers sharing my planet with me!" and check out our messages etc and think "Loads of thieves sharing my planet with me" and it is upsetting to know we can't chuck them off our planet and have to try to figure out who is normal and who isn't all the time. Guess part of the reason there are so many of these troublemakers here with the rest of us is because most people wouldn't just "push a button to jettison them from Earth" if they could and would be a bit soft with them - whereas I would like to have that "button" and I would push it once I was sure they were either a warmonger or thief.

petra

I don’t know if anyone here has an alert on the land register.
The cases of houses being stolen is on the increase.
This applies particularly to leave a property for lengths of time.
What the alert does is contact you if someone is searching your property.

We have alerts for our house, dds’ houses, and a rental flat. IMO its an excellent service.

I'm an anti scammer of many years. I've seen young and old and even CEO's fall for scammers. Even when confronted by the clearest evidence, they will still believe that the person more than half their age loves them and the 'demand' for thousands of pounds is real.

In certain cases such as those with dementia or very clever scams, the bank should refund. It is difficult if the bank stop a payment and the customer wthdraws all their money and hands it over though.

Some people are beyond help.

In these cases I think the bank is entitled not to pay up at all. How anyone can simply give away this amount of money is absolutely beyond me. At some point you have to take personal responsibility and it’s not as though these scams haven’t been highlighted over and over. Unless there is a safeguarding concern where the bank are aware of a medical problem such as dementia etc, and haven’t followed procedure, the responsibility should be on the person.

I became aware of another possible scam this morning. Received an email from British Gas to say that they were refunding a substantial amount of credit on my energy account and increasing the direct debit by quite a lot. I don’t know about anyone else but that just didn’t make any sense to me, because the credit is enough to cover my bills until end of year review in May with no adjustments necessary.

I rang BG and they said they have no record of any email being sent today and the last communication from them was 5 November. They asked me to screenshot the email and send it to them so they could investigate, and they confirmed that the credit would stay on the account and the direct debit would remain the same - no plans to adjust either.

On looking back at the email, if it’s a scam, it’s a very scary one because the amount of credit was correct, as were the direct debit details - gas and electricity account numbers were also correct. There was a link at the bottom of the email to use if I wanted everything to remain the same - which I didn’t click. Thankfully I logged into my account first to check the details and then contacted BG direct. If anyone is with BG I’d be interested to hear if you’ve had anything similar.

petra

I don’t know if anyone here has an alert on the land register.
The cases of houses being stolen is on the increase.
This applies particularly to leave a property for lengths of time.
What the alert does is contact you if someone is searching your property.

We do!

There is an old saying that a fool and his. Money are easily parted. I imagine everyone who has been scammed would like their money back, and regrets their foolishness but it just means someone else pays for their foolishness including those who may have far less in the first place. I think if the bank have warned the person, then it's I reasonable to expect the bank to pay. More effort should be made by the police to catch the perpetrator when money has been obtained by deception but usually they have long since vanished before the victim reports them.

No. I don’t think banks should be held responsible for their customers who are daft enough to send money to complete strangers who they haven’t even met. Whenever I’ve made payment to someone new, the bank asks me questions about whether I trust/know the person and how I got their bank details before I can proceed.

About 18 months ago, I had a call purporting to be from my daughter. We exchanged a few text messages and then it suddenly hit me that this was probably a scam.
I asked “her” for the name of her two brothers…. obviously, she did not have a clue, call soon ended..

I had several phone calls from someone telling me someone from my household gad entered a competition and as I am the only one in my household I knew that was a scam.

Thank you for the Land Registry tip petra I wasn’t aware of it and have now done one for our house.

Sarnia.
I find it incredible that someone could fall prey to the monsters that perpetrate these scams especially now that there is so much media attention on them. Simply put, do not send money to someone you have never met!

I think the 'romance' scam and the 'commercial' scams are two separate issues.

As Doodledog pointed out, the romance-scams are very sad. And she's right, human-nature is such, it seems, that we do believe we are unique when we meet someone 'special' - we romanticise the ordinary into something exceptional. If this happens at a time when 'life' has been hard or difficult, it's easy enough to believe - through this rosy glow - that the future is going to be wonderful.

Not sure what can be done about it though. If warnings don't deter the person, or force them to question their own judgement or perceptions - what the heck can you do?

As for the 'commercial' scammers - I'm with CariadAgain - I'd also press the button to jettison them from earth. In fact, I'd lasso the romance-scammers in with them.

They sit behind a computer, having made it their aim to wreck people's lives, without a shred of decency or care for anything or anyone, just their own all-engrossing need to profit from other's misery. Who needs these people in society?

It would be so nice if we could find a habitable planet, or an totally isolated desert-island where we could shove these parasites together with the basics for survival - and let them all feed off, thieve, and trick each other.

We've been scammed in several different foreign 'commercial' circumstances. All on holiday, all in foreign countries. Amounts always refunded. Do we feel we did anything wrong? No. Scams change constantly.

Banks shouldn't refund on 'romance' scams - rather a waste of money. Costs Banks pass on to all customers, in the end.

If the scams didn't work, then it wouldn't be worth the scammers time and effort.

The fact that they carry on is proof that more than a few get taken in; they're probably ashamed of being judged, so they stay quiet.

Bad enough feeling like a fool, without every Tom, Dick and Harry queuing up to call you one.

Pammie1

In these cases I think the bank is entitled not to pay up at all. How anyone can simply give away this amount of money is absolutely beyond me. At some point you have to take personal responsibility and it’s not as though these scams haven’t been highlighted over and over. Unless there is a safeguarding concern where the bank are aware of a medical problem such as dementia etc, and haven’t followed procedure, the responsibility should be on the person.

I became aware of another possible scam this morning. Received an email from British Gas to say that they were refunding a substantial amount of credit on my energy account and increasing the direct debit by quite a lot. I don’t know about anyone else but that just didn’t make any sense to me, because the credit is enough to cover my bills until end of year review in May with no adjustments necessary.

I rang BG and they said they have no record of any email being sent today and the last communication from them was 5 November. They asked me to screenshot the email and send it to them so they could investigate, and they confirmed that the credit would stay on the account and the direct debit would remain the same - no plans to adjust either.

On looking back at the email, if it’s a scam, it’s a very scary one because the amount of credit was correct, as were the direct debit details - gas and electricity account numbers were also correct. There was a link at the bottom of the email to use if I wanted everything to remain the same - which I didn’t click. Thankfully I logged into my account first to check the details and then contacted BG direct. If anyone is with BG I’d be interested to hear if you’ve had anything similar.

Having been offered a 4 figure refund by BG when we were only just in credit nothing surprises me with them. I moved to Octopus and they sorted it out for me. I really didn't want to get into a mess with the gas/electric so didn't want a refund I'm not due.

Dickens - LOL.

My own take on these thieves = well the one I knew personally recently (ie lives in my small town) sort of edged his way in gradually (ie recommended by a friend to do a paid little job for me - which turned into a noticeable number of paid little jobs) is someone that I can see in hindsight as totally and completely self-focused.

The expressions in his eyes (in hindsight), his great concern for his own welfare, he "bigged himself up".....basically he was not just the only person "in his world" (with the possible exception of a mother he talked about, but I never encountered her) - but he was the only one on the planet that mattered it seemed (according to him).

I'm guessing thieves are often narcissists? probably not very bright (all the ones I've ever encountered were dim to average level of intelligence and probably veering towards dim) - ie they don't think through their actions to realise "One day I'm going to be caught and punished for this".

Any I've met personally certainly never ever have intelligent eyes or say anything remotely intelligent. (Though maybe more intelligent ones do exist - but they focus on more sophisticated scams that they have enough brainpower to work out??). Their mind revolves purely and simply around themselves and themselves only basically from what I can see.

I've noticed the dim eyes too on any photos/expose tv programmes about the foreign ones - whether standard thieves or romance scammers. But that doesn't help one judge if they're not face-to-face with oneself.....

Jockytaff

Sarnia.
I find it incredible that someone could fall prey to the monsters that perpetrate these scams especially now that there is so much media attention on them. Simply put, do not send money to someone you have never met!

My aunt lost thousands, she had dementia and we had to intervene. Some people are just vulnerable.