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Original poster

Why should we all pay for those who’ve been scammed?

363 replies

Raisinganiguana · 23/10/2023 13:14

I’m watching Steph’s Packed Lunch and there’s a woman on there who sadly got romance scammed for £30k. Afterwards, the financial expert was really clear that if this happens to you, the banks have to give you your money back. He even said they can’t ‘weasel’ out of it.

I’m sorry for the lady, but why should everyone else pay for what is essentially someone choosing to give someone else money? We don’t pay people back if they gamble it away, so why do we demand it just because they’ve fallen for a story?

She wasn’t someone very old or vulnerable. She chose to send this man money.

btw the scammer’s story was ridiculous - and the man’s photos were actually of some super hot model - so how one falls for these is another thing….especially as there are back to back warnings everywhere and on every bloody programme nowadays.

AIBU that people need to take some responsibility?

OP posts:
CheerfulYank · 23/10/2023 14:15

I got scammed out of $500 when I tried to pay my electric bill recently. I caught on before the money had even left the bank. I called them immediately and canceled DH’s card etc…but they still couldn’t get it back for me.

So my first instinct is to feel a bit miffed that someone who is choosing to be silly gets theirs back when I can’t but…I also know the feeling, the horror of knowing you’ve been an idiot and your money is gone. (We’re broke as a joke right now and $500 is a lot) So I don’t really begrudge them. (Of course I’m not in the UK so it’s not my economy anyway)

Zebedee999 · 23/10/2023 14:14

Sugarcoatedcandycane · 23/10/2023 13:41

I know 2 people who fell victims to this kind of scam.

Both had learning difficulties. Both gave their disability payments over.

Yes they should get their money back.

If they are that vulnerable maybe they should have some limit set on what payments they can make without some "power of attorney" type of approval from someone else? It seems ridiculous to allow people who are easily scammed to have access to a fully featured bank account that allows them to gift away all their money?

JudgeJ · 23/10/2023 14:14

Harella · 23/10/2023 13:16

But we don’t pay for it. It’s not like it’s coming out of our taxes.

The banks pay for it out of their profits. Our savings are unaffected.

Edited

The Banks are dealing with our money so we are indeed paying for these scams. Banks should not be liable for other people's naivity or straight forward stupidity, only if the bank can be shown to be culpable should they pay. They are being treated as free insurance.

RantyAnty · 23/10/2023 14:13

92 million is nothing.

Are you that bored to be worried about something that has zero effect on you?

Universalsnail · 23/10/2023 14:12

I can't imagine living my life this bitter over vulnerable people

mynameiscalypso · 23/10/2023 14:11

@countrygirl99 All very valid questions. It's a hard balance to get right. I mainly pontificate on this stuff so I don't have to sit in a bank and try to implement it!

MelsMoneyTree · 23/10/2023 14:10

How many threads have you started about bankers' bonuses? How many about the Tory's Covid contracts to their 'pals'? There are millions of things, I'm annoyed about paying for - banks having to abide by financial regulation and the financial ombudsman isn't on the list.

malificent7 · 23/10/2023 14:10

It's great to live in such a caring society.

Bex5490 · 23/10/2023 14:09

Raisinganiguana · 23/10/2023 14:03

I’m actually a very liberal and socially minded person, generally. I just don’t get this!

Steph was saying to the woman ‘I totally understand why you were scammed, it seems so believable.’

No it bloody doesn’t. A hot Canadian male model contacting an 60 whatever woman out of the blue, saying he loves you and is moving to Scotland, but first you need to send him money to fix an oil rig, is in no way believable. Its stupidity

I do have to agree that when you see a slightly overweight 68 year old grandma from Bury convinced that 23 year old Parisian model Pierre has fallen deeply in love with her you think…

OH COME ON!!!!! 😂😂😂

But I wouldn’t begrudge her the money back for being a silly old fool!

SunsetCurtain · 23/10/2023 14:08

Is there a grey area / sliding scale in your opinion? Or is it as black and white as if you lose money then tough?
For example, if someone stole your purse and went on a spending spree - is the onus on you to have protected your purse better?

listsandbudgets · 23/10/2023 14:07

One thing I think banks need to do is work out a way of stopping a pending payment. I got caught by a scam website earlier this year - I'm not proud of it and it really upset me. As soon as I checked my account it became clear it was a scam as the payee was not who I thought I'd paid. I called the bank who were clear that the payment was pending and hadn't left my account but that I could only try to claim it back once it had properly gone out - into the pockets of the scammers.

It would save them a lot of money and time if they could stop what are clearly scam payments in their tracks. I was lucky enough to get it back which I was extremely grateful for

Tiredalwaystired · 23/10/2023 14:06

Tiredalwaystired · 23/10/2023 14:03

I think you underestimate how very clever some scammers are. It’s not like they always come into your life on a Monday and scam you on a Tuesday.

This comes from someone who was scammed two years into what I thought was a genuine relationship. I have a degree and a high paying job. I don’t usually consider myself to be stupid. Turns out I was very naive but stupid, no.

Hope it never happens to you.

Oh, and by relationship, I mean living in the same house relationship, not a virtual romance. He was still slowly but surely emptying never touched savings accounts.

SausageAndEggSandwich · 23/10/2023 14:05

ATerrorofLeftovers · 23/10/2023 13:54

The scammers can be very sophisticated. Don’t pride yourself that you definitely couldn’t fall for one, that’s not true.

The banks have removed a lot of the safeguards that would previously have stopped some of this, without consulting consumers, for the benefit of their own balance sheets.

Closing branches and not having a dedicated bank manager pushes more and more people to bank online, even if they don’t have the skill or knowledge to do so safely. Customers increasingly don’t have a choice.

The banks profit hugely from reduced infrastructure costs. It’s right and proper that they bear the brunt of this. It’s them that benefits most from the current set up. They can’t have it both ways.

Agree.

Online banking has been pushed as convenient etc for the benefit of customers but it isn't really about that, it saves them loads of money. The insight that a bank manager might have had about their customers is all gone & gentle questioning at the counter about a transaction that seems odd doesn't happen any more - hardly anyone goes into a physical bank to make a payment these days or if you do, you have to use a machine instead of speaking to a person.

It's pushed the burden of checking whether something is legit to the customer, not the bank. And vulnerable people are the victims. You can be vulnerable in all sorts of ways.

HelpMePlease74 · 23/10/2023 14:04

I kind of agree with you - but always worry that one day I'll be the injured party. Every one of these stories starts with someone saying they never expected it to happen to them etc

Rinkymcdinky · 23/10/2023 14:04

My husband works in this area in banking. His whole role is to try and help banks to stop scams-it's never ending. I don't really know what I think about this case, it wasn't a plausible scam!?

pinkyredrose · 23/10/2023 14:04

countrygirl99 · 23/10/2023 13:19

And why do you think there is such a difference between lendingand savings rate. It's to cover costs of which this is a very substantial one. So yes, it does because banks could give a better savings rate.

Show quote history

Are you sure about that?

DwightShrutesgirlfriend · 23/10/2023 14:04

Raisinganiguana · 23/10/2023 13:56

@DwightShrutesgirlfriend that's not a romance scam though is it? It’s not lots of money being sent over a period of time because he pretended he was in a relationship.

No, but it is a scam preying on people's emotional vulnerability. Hard to know who would be the judge of who deserves to get their money back and who doesn't, I guess?

Tiredalwaystired · 23/10/2023 14:03

I think you underestimate how very clever some scammers are. It’s not like they always come into your life on a Monday and scam you on a Tuesday.

This comes from someone who was scammed two years into what I thought was a genuine relationship. I have a degree and a high paying job. I don’t usually consider myself to be stupid. Turns out I was very naive but stupid, no.

Hope it never happens to you.

Original poster
Raisinganiguana · 23/10/2023 14:03

I’m actually a very liberal and socially minded person, generally. I just don’t get this!

Steph was saying to the woman ‘I totally understand why you were scammed, it seems so believable.’

No it bloody doesn’t. A hot Canadian male model contacting an 60 whatever woman out of the blue, saying he loves you and is moving to Scotland, but first you need to send him money to fix an oil rig, is in no way believable. Its stupidity

OP posts:
countrygirl99 · 23/10/2023 14:02

mynameiscalypso · 23/10/2023 13:53

@countrygirl99 Some of the ideas being proposed are slowing down payments. 99% of fraud happens in the faster payments system which means banks have very little chance of recovering funds. The government will consult on giving banks the ability to hold suspicious payments for 48 hours to investigate. The other big area of focus is the banks/payment firms that allow fraudsters and money mules to open accounts to receive the proceeds of frauds.

Obviously a large scale international law enforcement operation to dismantle the organised crime gangs being the vast majority of frauds would be a good start too...

@Flower35214 Yeah, I totally agree with you. But I guess until you're in that kind of 'hot state' it's hard to know what it's like. I've known far too many fraud professionals who think they know it all and then get caught out themselves.

But delaying payments will be to the detriment of legitimate payments. Every time an individual needs to make a big payment they will need to factor in the likelihood of delay you can imagine the wailing mumsnet posts. There are already frequent posts complaining because someone has even asked why they are making a large withdrawal/payment with a couple of pages of "how date they nosey buggers" responses. Branch staff have enough customer aggression to cope with already.
How do you identify a suspicious payment without catching too many/missing some.
How do you make it harder than it already is to open an account without making it too hard for the vulnerable?

SwordToFlamethrower · 23/10/2023 13:59

Wow I hope you never need a safety net in the future and you meet someone like you.

Sheesh

Flickersy · 23/10/2023 13:59

The BBC show For Love Or Money is morbidly fascinating.

The amount of people who are told outright by friends, family, professionals etc that they are being scammed but who ignore everything and barrel on with their own idiocy is breathtaking.

One mistake such as falling for a phishing scam in an email is one thing. Persistently allowing yourself to be fleeced because you believe a hot 20 year old millionaire from the Med / Russian model has fallen for you, a 60-something grandmother / 70-year-old pensioner from Merseyside, is quite another.

ATerrorofLeftovers · 23/10/2023 13:58

Elvis1956 · 23/10/2023 13:55

In a way I agree with you. But once the need to reimburse actually hits the banks profits, perhaps they will step up and stop the fraud. It's their lack of concern, not bothering to chase down money, allowing criminals to open bank accounts, not stopping money going abroad, not working together internationally that letting it happen

Absolutely. My mother was scammed. The money was sent to a Lloyds account. If Lloyds had done their know your customer checks properly, they should know exactly who was involved in the fraud.

They didn’t bother giving details to the police or clawing back the money though. They just wanted my pensioner mother to take the hit. Like she can afford it more than they can with their billions.

Lazy bastards.

gazpachosoupday · 23/10/2023 13:58

I think it should be on a case by case basis.

But I also think the banks need to put more into keeping up with the scammers, not just wait till a bunch of customers get caught and then do something about it

Original poster
Raisinganiguana · 23/10/2023 13:58

@Bex5490 I’d never be happy that someone lost their money no. But that doesn’t mean I also agree that we should fund people’s fantasies.

OP posts:
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