Why should the banks pick up the tab for fraud?
A woman who was conned out of £113,000 by a Facebook fraudster says she’s facing bankruptcy after claiming her banks would not reimburse her lost money.
Rachel Elwell, 50, from Brownhills, West Midlands, was the victim of an elaborate romance scam after being contacted by an ‘attractive’ and ‘intelligent’ man on Facebook at the start of 2021.
After speaking for months and convincing her that he was being held captive in Eastern Europe and in desperate need of money, Ms Elwell sent the scammer tens thousands of pounds.
In what way is the bank responsible for this? I’ve been approached by these scammers and they are a doddle to spot. They all have the same approach and it is usually a series of hard luck stories that stretch the imagination just a little too much. Even so, the minute they ask for money, it’s a slam dunk. I can understand how someone who is vulnerable might fall for the initial story, but the moment money gets involved and you’ve never actually met, then it’s a scam.
Which again, begs the question, why is this the responsibility of the bank? Did the bank in any way cause her to lose this money? Was the bank in any way negligent?
Rachel said: ‘I am in a devastating situation. The banks have found me liable and I am left with suicidal thoughts.
‘I don’t believe I had a fair investigation and I feel as though I have been robbed twice. The way I have been treated is shocking.’
Rachel borrowed tens of thousands of pounds on credit cards and loans and sent it to the fraudster through her banks.
Rachel says she sent £36,425 through Santander between January 22 and February 19. She says she also sent £62,350 through HSBC, totalling £98,775.
Her total losses add up to £112,575 – as well as claiming her sister also sent £13,800 from a different bank – which is still under investigation.
But both banks have dismissed her case and told her she must repay the money she borrowed.
So they carried out their investigation and found that it was nothing to do with them. Sure, it’s devastating for her, but why should other people be forced to bail her out?
Rachel accepts she was fooled and has stressed she does not expect special treatment.
There, you go then. As I say repeatedly when discussing these scams, they are pretty easy to spot and while the romance scam is particularly nasty given that it plays on emotions and potentially blinds the victim’s instincts, the minute they ask for money, they are telling you it’s a scam.
Here’s the killer quote:
A spokesperson for Santander said: ‘We have the utmost sympathy for Ms Elwell and all those who fall victim to the criminals who carry out these scams.
‘Unfortunately, despite repeatedly warning her of the dangers of transferring money to someone she hadn’t met and directly raising our concerns that this was a scam with Ms Elwell and the police, she confirmed she wanted to proceed with the payments.’
So, she was warned and ignored the warnings. End of story, frankly. Why should the banks accept responsibility? They exercised it when there was a possibility of preventing the crime in the first place.
She’s not safe to be out. Interestingly we had a 419 attempt, the first in ages, last week: my. how we laughed.
I thought they had had their day.
I’ve never understood why people who get conned into transferring money electronically seem to assume that their bank should pay up. If you get scammed by a fraudster and he/she steals cash from you, or valuable goods, does anyone pay up on your behalf? Of course not, you have to eat the losses. Indeed there are frequent cases whereby a fraudster abuses a position of trust at work to steal money from a business which often then goes bankrupt. Even if the fraudster is caught and convicted the business owner rarely gets their money back, its long gone and the courts never force the criminal to pay up. So why are victims of electronic crime seemingly given special treatment (as many are reimbursed by their banks, partially if not in full)?
Good points. There is a case, I think for going after the criminal through the civil process. You might not get all your money back, but screwing them for everything they have might provide some form of restorative justice.
Maybe it’s because the money doesn’t actually become real to them until they have to pay it back? Borrowing from the bank and transferring it to Outer Cuntistan is just a series of electronic keystrokes and no physical cash is handled
Maybe the ‘victims’ think the bank repaying it would simply be another press of a few keys and nobody is actually out of pocket
Stories like this should help the gullible see that electronic money is still money and being dim with other peoples money has consequences
I suspect that this is what is behind Santander’s response. Sooner or later people need to wake up.
I don’t know what the thought process is. It just seems odd to me that if you are defrauded by someone who steals your electronic money (eg a family member steals your card and pin and takes money out of your account, or a worker who has access to your business account helps themselves) no-one ever seems to suggest the bank should pay that money back. Yet when a person transfers the money themselves voluntarily having fallen for a scam that has scam written all over it in letters a foot high, they expect the bank to just go ‘Oh thats OK, here have your money back!’.
Indeed, i said for years that insurers could have stopped crash for cash scum dead in their tracks.
Pursue fraudsters through the courts for every penny they fiddled and the damage they caused including compensation for victims, get judgements including legal fees for some seriously expensive briefs leading to fraudsters having to declare bankrupt and possibly losing their homes.
Would only have needed a couple of well publicised cases and the racket would have died out pronto.
The same applies with most scams, hit them in the pocket, works every time.
It’s a foul thing to prey on middle aged possibly lonely women’s emotions as these scum do, but its hardly the bank’s fault they can’t see the obvious even when its pointed out to them.
The closest they have come to this is the seizure of criminal assets, but that’s the heavy hand of the state. I much prefer punitive action taken via the civil route. Send bailiffs in to seize their goods and chattels. It’s not just about making the bastards bankrupt, it’s about ritual humiliation and suffering in the process.
Don’t know how cash-4-crash worked up your end but in Bradford and Birmingham it was the followers of the RoP that we’re doing it and the signs were pretty obvious (shitty car recently registered with cheapest insurance) packed with multiple people to claim the maximum from spurious whiplash injuries et al, all signed off by a co-religionist doctor and money funnelled back to Pakistan via Hawala (Islamic money laundering), so that there is very little if any to ever be claimed and all the Muhammed’s vanish in a puff of smoke.
I sort of think it would be like you lending your new motorbike to someone you don’t know. Then when he disappears with it and doesn’t come back, you complain that the shop where you bought it won’t give you a new one.
A better analogy would be complaining to the finance company you borrowed the money from to buy it.
As for this cumb dunt, she transferred the money from an account she had full access to, to the account of the scammers.
Tough luck babe. Stupidity SHOULD hurt.
In the article, it says the woman discussed it with her family…
And not one of them said “Hang on, this is all a bit dodgy.” Or “Smells like a scam.”
Her sister apparently also sent money.
And in the article, there’s a picture he sent of him being held in a basement by loan sharks…
Because loan sharks are well known for taking people hostage and then posing for photos with them…
I just don’t understand the amount of stupid on display here. She took out huge loans and credit cards for someone she hadn’t even met. Why? Would she do it for a bloke she had just met in the pub? And if not, why the flock did she do it for someone who was just on the other end of a screen?
Don’t worry though. It’s not like people like this can vote…
Right?