Why should banks have to refund?

I do think it’s possible to fall in love having not met someone . They snooze you with words written or spoken & keep at it .
These scammers have ‘scripts’ they do this for a living & there is more than likely a bonus for the kill ie the big end payout .
The people that send money are not always stupid , I once watched a programme on romance fraud where a Police Inspector was scammed out of thousands.
It’s the tact that they use , think of it like a salesman wanting to make that sale .
I put the phone down - Block the number & report it . On insta. I also block all the seemingly interested men who follow me on a daily basis ,, yet have no posts & are only following women . One today just joined insta today !
Another or many others are fake accounts making out to be another popular subscriber. I block & report those as well .
If you don’t know then it’s easy .
I have had a recent text re a parcel delivery from Evri claiming I needed to do this or that - I had no expected delivery neither did DH it was a scam .
As was the HMRC refund again blocked reported .
Just do it as Nike say , block report delete
I did come unstuck a while ago with an American number which I immediately blocked 🚫 the person was unknown to me or the number was & I knew no one who would call from the US .
This time the caller messaged , they had my number given by a third party ( who should have ok’d it with me tbh) but it was a genuine call 📞 after all .

Sago

I am not really active on FB, I use it for community pages so I was quite surprised to get a friend request from the very handsome John.

I obviously knew it was a scam so I gave him answers that would lead him on.

He was an American “surgery doctor” in Syria🤣.

Here is a screenshot of our short lived online romance.

Classic 🤣

Grinned a bit at the comment re "women whose only form of self-validation is being attractive to men".

Finally thought of some "use" for the memory of the first boyfriend I had all those years back - and I was the one that chucked him (thank goodness!!!!). Ever since finding out who he was (pretty much after the event) I've thought "Oh really! Nah - not bothered thanks all the same. I don't need a man. I can manage just fine without one if need be - but it's a thing to know I can attract one with that amount of money behind him" !!!.

Though it certainly would have helped a LOT if I had managed to find Mr Right - as I'd be way/way better off from not having to cover the costs of all housing/bills/etc throughout my life on my own from my low income. But I've never been someone who self-validates by the presence of a man and just taken the view of "If there is one I'm interested in = good. If there isn't = oh well.....other things to get on with/other places to be etc".

I do remember when I used to have a little running joke going in my head at one time of "One in hand and several on the waiting list" of men interested in me.....and it was nice to think "I seem to have a reasonable choice of men - if I wanted to" but I've never needed a man to "complete me" and I was fortunate that I've never wanted children and so didn't have Mother Nature exerting pressure on me to try and have one around from that pov.

win

I don't think kissing and making love is essential to loving, there are many types of love, but I do think it is impossible to love if you have not met. I think some people fall in love with the idea of loving/being in love and think this is what they are feeling. They are of course very vulnerable and possibly needy too, so will believe anything. Yes I believe you can bee desperate to be loved for whatever reason.

So true, or this scammers wouldn’t stand a chance of fleecing anyone

MissAdventure

I can't remember, Mt61.

I think I checked online, because I knew someone's debts died with them anyway, then found a few stories from victims that were virtually the same.

Always utilities, small amounts, and following the same script.

👍🏻😩

Apart through a PM on GN I have never been subject to an attempted romance scan and I remember my last scam phone call, it was several weeks ago, because they are so rare. What are other people on, online or other, to be, to be constantly bombarded by all these threats?

As for recorded messages, we get recorded messages from the Environment Agency about the potential of flooding in our village - three times so far this year, some medical messages, and other entirely genuine ones, so I would never immediately slam a phone down if I hear a recorded message. I would just stay silent until I could make a reasoned decision and respond, listen or put the phone down accordingly.

The same with numbers I do not recognise. I have friends I speak to occasionally whose numbers I wouldn't recognise if they came up on my phone.

On Romance scams, one of the biggest problems is that there are still so many women whose only form of self validation is whether they are attractive to men and to not have a man in your life is almost shameful because it shows you are unatractive. I do think more could be done to stop romance scams by making women aware of why they could be vulnerable and how these romance calls work, by preying on their insecurities and try and support and change the value systems to make them less vulnerable to scammers.

I think very few younger women think like this, so these scams wllsoon reach a natural end.

Needless to say she was back in the branch the next day to tell us it was a scam and placing the blame squarely on our shoulders. Luckily the bank did refund her but really bank staff were not to blame.

Despite being given the opportunity to give the reason, she lied to bank staff.
Why on earth should she deserve a refund. The bank was not to blame.
Our neighbour gave out her pin number to scamners, they cleared out her account. Despite it being her own fault, they refunded her money. Why?

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

Reckless in the extreme. But then there are o lot of people who just seem others to pick up the tab for their injudicious cinduct.

CariadAgain

I would go by the circumstances involved as to how the thief managed to steal the money exactly. I would guess the £11,000 represents the first amount he stole from her - and so they "gave the benefit of the doubt" about that and then, subsequently, thought she should have realised by then.

I would tend to take the attitude of assessing the circumstances if I were the bank - eg had it been a one-off phonecall or email from a thief and most people would have clicked it wasn't a normal person and there's so many of these thieves around and it's probably pretty standard to have several thieves contact us all every darn week. So I'd say banks should continue refunding for one-off payments that could have been stolen in all innocence from the victim - as otherwise we'll all lose whatever trust we have left in the banks to protect our money and start looking for alternatives to them. It's pretty easy to swop bank if one of them started being "awkward" and I've been with my own bank for quite some years now and I stick with them - because I'm satisfied (basically) with the service from them. They had just one hint I was considering leaving them - when they sent me through new cards that were contactless variety - and I promptly rang them and asked them if I was swopping to another bank and told them that I would do so if they didn't send me replacement old-style cards. They did so - so they kept me as a customer. I would have left them if they hadn't.

Re the "romance scammer" - these guys do seem to zoom in particularly on women of the sort of age where it's striking home hard that they seem to be losing their looks (if they had some - ie were attractive/beautiful/pretty). Understandable that a formerly attractive etc woman would want to think "Maybe I've still Got It".

The best thing you can do to prevent the risk of your friend attracting another scammer is to help her with making the best of whatever looks she has left, point out other women in the same agegroup (some as examples of how well they're managing to hold onto any looks they had.....and the rest to prove that ageing looks comes to the best of us and we don't look like "ourselves" any longer...darn it!). It is very hard mentally to accept our looks are being taken off us by Mother Nature - but it's clear it happens to 99% of those who have any. Point out "If it can happen to Brigit Bardot even - then it certainly can to yer-ordinary-woman-in-the-street". Or one I used to think was extremely attractive - ie the singer Debbie Harry (but, if you look at her now, she is still recognizable as herself.....but eyes are tired/waistline is thick/etc).

(Shows just how common thieves are that I got a phonecall from a thief in the middle of typing this....!!!! Phone slammed down the second I heard an automated voice lying to me).

Might have been the £11k was the first amount but it's often follow up payments flagged. The problem is customers are often adamant they want the money sent despite bank staff trying very hard to intervene and then they blame the bank for sending the money anyway

Reply to Win. Thank you for your post. My husband has been in a nursing home for two years and the DWP arranged for his pension to be paid into my account and as there was no point keeping his bank account open it was cancelled.
I used my savings which I had transferred to my current account and my two older children also contributed so that is why I was able to pay all this money out.
I still can’t understand why my bank never queried the amounts but perhaps it was because he had been well known locally and they thought I was well off.
I wish 😥

I don't think kissing and making love is essential to loving, there are many types of love, but I do think it is impossible to love if you have not met. I think some people fall in love with the idea of loving/being in love and think this is what they are feeling. They are of course very vulnerable and possibly needy too, so will believe anything. Yes I believe you can bee desperate to be loved for whatever reason.

...and, on a very different tack re these personal relationship scammers = I'm always extremely puzzled as to how even one half of that "relationship" can be professing "lurve - real lurve" when they can't possibly have slept together (ie because they've never met).

That's the aspect of this that I personally just can't get my head round and I'm sitting there thinking "But they haven't even kissed - so how on earth could it possibly be 'Lurve real Luve - bring on the hearts and flowers' "....

Celieanne86

My husband died almost a year ago and I had to pay out quite a lot of money which I did using my debit card. I paid one thousand 400 pounds to have the family grave opened and the headstone removed, six thousand to the undertaker for his funeral, one thousand 200 for an oak coffin, one thousand 400 for the wake, one thousand 800 for the home fees for his last week there (which l really resented paying as he had died on the Tuesday and the week went from Monday to Monday) and apart from smaller amounts finally just over a thousand to have the headstone engraved and replaced.

This is a huge sum of money and I am an old lady and not once did my bank check with me that this money was being used for the proper purposes.

I suppose it did look genuine but as my husband was not in the same bank at least they could have checked with me that he really had died

And to top it off I’ve just had a Facebook comment from a man telling me how much he admires my kind words and would like to get to know me better, yes ok dream on 🤭

So many questions to this point. Why did Celianne pay it all from her account and why did the bank not query that. It usually gets paid from the deceased's account, even without a POA as the bills can be submitted straight to the bank for payment from the estate. It would be rather unusually for the late husband to have no funds at all in his account whilst the wife had a good sum of money in hers. My bank would definitely have been in touch for both advise on this matter and to check what was going on.

I almost daily get contacted on social media by someone who tells me they admire my posts and would love to get to know me better, that one is very common. I just block them and hide the message.

theworriedwell

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.

That in itself sounds like a scam one telephone call to British Gas could probably have sorted. Did you phone them?

This film shows how enormous the business is.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rs7s/hunting-the-catfish-crime-gang

Having watched the romance scam programme in BBC TV I am astounded at how easy the scammers fool people. Why would an early 20s very attractive lady be attracted to a grizzled, wrinkled man of 70 and upwards? By the same token a, supposedly, handsome young man going 'ga ga' over a grey haired, often overweight lady who is showing her years? They don't stop at sending money for all kinds of things, hospital treatment and air fares to visit - but never do. Why not buy your own ticket and go and visit the person? This can go on for months, even years, and the couple never meet. This scam caught some very intelligent people. Why? Being on your own should not take away all your common sense!!

Seajaye

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.

more effort should be made by the police 🤦🏼‍♀️
I don’t think you’re aware of how clever and serious this business is.
A small town has been built in Laos. This has been built by a Chinese business man.
It is mostly occupied by prisoners who have been bought from prisons.
Their job is to man the phones. They are captive there.
And you think that our police can tackle this.

As the bank tried to warn her several times, I don't think they need to refund any more than they have. My bank even asks me where the money came from if I deposit more than $1,000 in cash. (It's rent monies)
Some people have to start taking more responsibility for what they do.

How do we know about the tarmac scam?
Because people have heard of it, because victims have soon about it.

We weren't all born with an in built knowledge of the properties of tarmac.

I suggest you change your bank CeliaAnne

My husband died almost a year ago and I had to pay out quite a lot of money which I did using my debit card. I paid one thousand 400 pounds to have the family grave opened and the headstone removed, six thousand to the undertaker for his funeral, one thousand 200 for an oak coffin, one thousand 400 for the wake, one thousand 800 for the home fees for his last week there (which l really resented paying as he had died on the Tuesday and the week went from Monday to Monday) and apart from smaller amounts finally just over a thousand to have the headstone engraved and replaced.

This is a huge sum of money and I am an old lady and not once did my bank check with me that this money was being used for the proper purposes.

I suppose it did look genuine but as my husband was not in the same bank at least they could have checked with me that he really had died

And to top it off I’ve just had a Facebook comment from a man telling me how much he admires my kind words and would like to get to know me better, yes ok dream on 🤭

M0nica

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

It isn't a question of being on the alert all the time, in case someone is a thief.

It is just, as in the past, being alert to suspicious approaches. In the past, it would be the man offering to tarmac your drive, for £50, - and wanting to do it now. Or someon offering you something dirt cheap, off the back of a lorry. You just use your common sense.

Which has just reminded me that, when I moved to this area (ie one where a lot of the houses have this concrete type tiles - rather than the slate ones I want/am used to) I have spotted a gang of obvious-to-me workmen going round the area doing pressurewashing of the roofs - and they were getting given the job by a noticeable number of nearby house-owners.

Cue for me thinking "House roofs don't get pressure-washed. We never do - I've never seen that once. Can't really be necessary surely - and yet there these workmen are doing house after house of all these longstanding residents nearby!"

Cue for thinking "I dunno - maybe this not-my-sorta-roof all these houses have does need pressure-washing (unlike our slate ones). I'm going to go googling to see if this is something different that does need to be done - compared to what I'm used to".

Cue for Google telling me "You're right. Roofs do NOT get pressure-washed (even if made in this concrete tile stuff they use there). In fact - it will damage the roof".

Cue for me thinking "I'll stick to my own practice then - of of course roofs don't have that" and, when one of these workmen came up the road in the direction of my house he virtually ran back down it again - as I told him what-for rather clearly. Was very surprised at all these people falling for it - as I analysed the area on the spot when I came looking here at the houses as "The local former 'great and good' obviously live round here. This is going to mean these houses will all be bought up one by one - and modernised - and mine is one of the first here for this treatment".

I would have thought (former) "local 'great and good' of the town" would have realised.....!

Yes, we all have times of being vulnerable, perhaps without even realising.

Some of the romance scammers even admit to their victim that they're scammers, but the victim sees it as proof of how genuine their love is.
Its quite unbelievable

A few years ago someone contacted me on Facebook messenger. He seemed plausible, running a charity for orphans in Uganda.

I was never sure and hated myself for being cynical. It was just after my mum had died so I suppose I was vulnerable.

I sent him £200 because he said he had some hospital fees to pay. I asked him for details of the hospital so I could pay directly but he claimed he was in a different one (thanks to Google maps I knew something wasn't right) but sent it anyway.

Of course, there were more heartbreaking stories to make me feel bad- but in the end I resisted sending more.

In the end I received a message from someone who had actually gone out to help this guy in his orphanage. It had all been a scam. Yes, the orphans were genuine but he wasn't, buying expensive clothes for himself and neglecting the kids.

I was so glad I hadn't sent him more. The lady stayed there to help the kids but sent him packing. Good on her.

So, I am saying that anyone can fall for these plausible stories when they are vulnerable.

We all need to be careful.