A businessman from North London who organises lucrative football commercial deals has revealed how he was left feeling ‘devastated’ and guilty after losing almost £60,000 in a sophisticated telephone scam.
Gary Linke, 58, transferred the money after being tricked by scamsters into believing that his and his family’s identity details had been stolen and that the funds would be safer in new accounts created for them.
That old chestnut. It’s nearly as old as the 419 scam, but there are still people gullible enough to believe it and fall for it. FFS! There is nothing sophisticated about it whatsoever, just an old trick and a mug. Even if the initial contact sounds plausible, the minute they ask you to move money about, it’s exposed as a scam, because not one financial organisation will ask you to do this over the phone. Not one. And they have been telling us this for long enough. There is no excuse, hence, my take being that these scams are a tax on the stupid. I have no sympathy for this fool whatsoever.
A lot of people are falling victim to these scams and I couldn’t believe that I had become one of them. I had sleepless nights because I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and the money I’d lost. It also made me quite ill. It’s been a very emotional time because we are still fighting to get our money back from the bank.
Why? The bank didn’t give the money away to criminals, you did. There is plenty of information about these scams. No legitimate financial organisation will call out of the blue and ask you to move money about. Indeed, legitimate financial organisations regularly exhort their customers not to do this because they will never ask them to. How many times do you need telling? This is your fault and you should take responsibility for the loss, not the bank.
In Mr Linke’s case, the scam started in February when his wife Kate received a text message she thought was from her son Ollie saying that he had lost his mobile phone and needed to buy another one for £1300.
Oh, FFS!
Kate, 56 a special needs teacher who was at work at the time became immediately concerned and responded to the message.
She was asked to supply her bank details, which she did and made a payment of £1300 thinking that she was communicating with Ollie and that it was for his new phone.
Ironically, just a day earlier, he had told her that his mobile phone was broken and that he was going to get it repaired.
Okay, so coincidence aside, she gave details to an unknown number instead of checking directly with Ollie. Bear in mind that if his phone was broken, what did it matter if he had lost it?
Just minutes after making the payment, Kate then received a phone call from somebody claiming to be from the fraud department of First Direct, who she and Mr Linke bank with.
While this might be believable…
He then received a call from the same person telling him what needed to be done to ‘protect their money.’
The scammer advised Mr Linke to transfer the money from the couple’s First Direct account into two HSBC accounts which were being especially opened for them but were not in their name to ‘keep it safe.’
This isn’t. Not remotely. So they missed the classic, ‘hi mum I’ve lost my phone’ trick and then went ahead and fell for the ‘move your money into a safe account’ trick.
He said: ‘You could say that I should have known better because of my experience but I was caught up in the moment and just went into a mode where I wanted to save our money. As soon as they sense an opening, these scammers work on your emotions and put a lot of fear in you.
Yes, you should have known better. These scams are well reported and easily spotted. So, nope. No sympathy.
Since then, the couple have been involved in a battle with the banks to reclaim their money.
First Direct informed Mr Linke that they could not assist because the funds had been sent from his Revolut account and it is their responsibility ‘to report the payments sent to HSBC and this would be investigated as a separate matter.’
They also claimed that he authorised the payments and that they were legally obliged to carry out his instructions.
Revolut informed Mr Linge that they would not be able to reimburse him as all security measures were in place when he made the transfers but that they are working with a ‘partner bank’ to try and recover them.
I’m with the banks on this one. They owe him nothing. If they can recover any of his funds, well, good for them, but they are under no obligation to make up any shortfall and nor should they.
Mr Linke was provided with a number of targeted scam specific warnings when these transactions were identified as potentially fraudulent.
Despite multiple attempts by Revolut to intervene, our warnings were not heeded and the customer provided false information in order to continue with these transactions. We subsequently processed the transactions in line with our legal obligations and our customer’s instructions.
That says it all really, doesn’t it?
Yeah, no sympathy from me either. How many times do people have to be told? No legitimate organisation or bank will ever contact you and tell you to open an account to which you transfer all your money, and where it will be ‘safe’. If someone gets in touch with you and advises you to do that, and it doesn’t strike you as suspicious then, frankly, you deserve everything that’s coming to you.
The only thing I have against the banks in this regard is the fact their own people ring you up at times wanting information regarding your account but first demand you prove who you are to them, by answering your security questions. I just say the same thing back to them – you prove to me who you are, you’ve rung me not the other way around! They don’t like this, I had one put the phone down on me because he said I was being too aggressive. Well don’t ring me out of the blue and start asking me questions requiring my personal data then. Until proven otherwise I’ll just assume you are a scammer, and treat you accordingly.
I’ve had conversations with the bank before where we had an issue (not fraud related) and they asked a question about my account details.
I got a bit concerned and said I didn’t like giving that information as they had called me.
The bloke on the other end basically said fine, call us back on a number from the website and we’ll be happy to help. Was very polite about it.
As far as I can tell,
If you say you’re not sure and want to call back yourself, their reaction is the giveaway. A genuine, good bank won’t care, should be happy you’re taking precautions. Scammers will be super annoyed. Rubbish banks will also be annoyed and should be left for a decent competitor forthwith.
But I don’t think the banks should be ringing customers at all. All communication should be taking place via secure methods, ideally via your online banking system, or if you don’t have that, old fashioned letters. Its just not right for them to be telling us with one hand ‘Don’t give out your details to people on the phone’ and with the other having whole departments who seem to spend their entire time ringing people up out of the blue and demanding they prove who they are.
“There is no excuse, hence, my take being that these scams are a tax on the stupid.”
I would make an exception for older people who are beginning to lose their cognitive abilities. A very similar scam to this one happened to my late mother. She actually posted four thousand pounds in cash to the scammer, which I would regard as being an unbelievably stupid thing to do. My mother had always been a pretty savvy person and not the type to fall for something like this at all so it all came as a bit of a shock to us.
That’s when a Power of Attorney comes in handy.
Yes, she arranged for myself and Mrs. S to have power of attorney after it happened.
O2 doesn’t phone people, they will make contact via text or email, so when someone phones saying they are from O2 and it’s about my account I simply tell them they’re not, they are scammers, go get a proper job and stop trying to steal my hard earned cash. Then put the phone down.
But really £1300 for a new phone, just like that. I’d tell the kid to get a cheap pay as you go until he can sort out a contract on a new phone. I’ve had those texts before, guessed it was a scam, just WhatsApp the person concerned, was a scam, blocked the number.
I worry about these scams but as I’ve next to no money and don’t do Internet banking think I’m not in too much risk.
I got one of those messages and my only child replied to it for me. The whatsapp conversation ended with the scammer swearing and my child saying, “Darling I didn’t bring you up to use such words.”
I like to think that they might have been talking to a mug.
Jim is right. Banks absolutely will ring you out of the blue to talk about your account. And during this they definitely will suggest moving money to other accounts like deposit accounts. This led to one of my friends closing his account with Rats Nest Bank.
When they stop doing this I might take them more seriously.
My wife had a problem with her credit card being compromised and was cold called by a legitimate caller that had all the hallmarks of a scammer. In the end the card had to be cancelled and re-issued twice before the problem was cleared up.
’Kate, 56 a special needs teacher…’
I laughed, and I’m not sorry!
Snap!
That’s three us us all laughing at that little nugget!