My DD has been 'Scammed' Any advice?

[IsAnybodyListening]

Adult DD19, is home from Uni. Her laptop has been playing up and she decided to upgrade.

She found one for £360 on a selling site. Both me and her Dad said not to buy it as for a couple of hundred quid more she could have had a new one with a guarantee etc..

Unbeknown to us, she spoke via text to the 'seller' for a couple of days, and paid the money. Long story short, she realised she had been scammed and contacted her bank (Barclays) 24hrs after sending payment (and realising what had happened).

Today a letter turned up from Barclays, saying her complaint was closed, and she could not get her money back, as the recipient had taken it.

My Dd paid into the recipients bank 'Aps Financial Ltd' and has the sort code and account number for the transfer, along with the name.

Can anyone help? Or is the money lost? Coincidentally, I work for a household name bank and am at a loss. I have to do quarterly training with the FCA, but after going down a rabbit hole with various banks and rules, it seems she won't get her money back. For what it is worth, she is feeling very stupid and tearful today, after confessing what had happened :(

Shameless bump!

Contact action fraud?

Short story, no.

At least she learned the lesson early, don’t have a go at her, she’ll feel crappy enough. It’s just about accepting and not dwelling on it I think.

Definitely report to action fraud but I'm not sure if they'll be able to recover the money :(

Poor DD, that's awful. Can you do some googling around the name that she made payment to and try to track them down? What forum was it advertised on - could it help and stop them posting further

I don’t think much can be done as she willingly gave them the money, citizens advice says to call the police on 101 if within 24 hours of tranferrring the money but it seems it is much longer than that now and the scammer has taken the funds and Likely closed their account down. It would have been in a false name anyway.

I think she sadly just needs to accept it, it’s doubtful she can get her money back.

What selling site was it? I assumed FB marketplace or Gumtree and not Ebay where she would have some protection.

This site seems to have loads of reviews from people scammed by APS financial, a thread on MSE said it's prepaid Mastercard and the company based in Texas so I don't know how it affects the laws on money back.

Can she phone the bank and ask them why they have closed the case?

I don't think she has any recourse for a BACS transfer. Expensive lesson learnt.

What site did she buy it from op?

See if you can find anything under that company's name on the Companies House website. It might help.

I don’t Think it will help, seems there is a real aps financial services Ltd who are massive and a fake one, if it was the proper company the bank would have sorted it.

Bless her it's easy done and a lesson in life. The bank will ask the paying bank for the funds to be returned on a best endeavors basis. If the account it was paid into had the money in it at the time your daughters bank asked for it back it could be ring fenced and sent back. Unfortunately if the money has been withdrawn then there is no money to be sent back. I work for a bank and we see this stuff all the time. Hope your daughter is ok x

I think the money is lost.

What training do you do with the FCA?

I think the money is lost, sadly. an expensive lesson, but one she won't forget.

Practically, if she can she should get a credit card and make all online payments only with that (and pay it off in full straight away) or use PayPal for eBay, because they have good disputes management.

Are they selling any others?

To answer a few Q's. I forgot the name of the selling site, I'll ask her when she is awake. It isn't one I recognised. She had screenshot the reviews, so the lady selling had lot's of positive feedback, BUT disabled her selling account pretty much straight after receiving the funds.

I have her full name, however I expect this is fake. I have found 12 accounts on social media platforms with the same name. I am not familiar with the rules of Aps Financial. But would assume she needed actual ID to open the account.

Barclays were a bit harsh, the lady on the phone was very stern with Dd saying no-one forced her to send the money. No, she didn't use PayPal, straight transfer which is why we have this persons bank account number and sort code.

FCA training is mandatory every 3mths where I work, but not very useful in this scenario. Although I know there is a push payment banking code most banks adhere to to protect customers, Barclays comply, but Aps never signed up. Also, because of the cash clearing cycle, I would have assumed Barclays could have re-called the payment as it was in a certain time-frame.

I haven't told her off. She let me read all the correspondence, and frankly she was very gullible and feels bad enough about it.

I expect the product (laptop) will pop up on other sites. I can only hope she uses the same name.

The whole thing was a bit elaborate. For example, the seller wanted a £100 retainer, and had Dd transfer to her boyfriends account as she said something was wrong with hers. The boyfiend then sent the £100 back to Dd, and the Gf said the full £360 could be sent to hers. Dd sent the money. Sorry to drip feed, I have 2 lots of names, sort codes and account numbers.

His bank is with Monzo. She spoke to Monzo, but nothing they could do as the 100 was received and sent back. The full 360 was then sent to the Aps bank.

Why, oh why Dd never suspected a thing. Clearly to trusting, the 'woman' even wrote a lot of fluff about being a Key Worker in Hampshire, and wanting to retrain at Uni. Can believe my ordinarily clever girl got duped :(

Your poor DD It's not much consolation, but I try to look at it as the fee you pay for a tough but valuable lesson. I think most people learn that lesson at some stage in their lives, but at least it's only once.

Btw I was also scammed as a young teen. I saw an ad recruiting people to WFH and was desperate to make money, so sent off most of my savings for the 'materials' they said I'd need.

She won’t get her money back sorry, it will have been swiftly moved to another account. The vest you could hope for is for a second generation request to the next bank.

Barclays will likely give their “customer” notice that the account is being closed and that’s that really.

Hopefully lesson learned

I'd also contact Trading Standards. It might stop the same person from doing it much more.

There's no recourse for a bank transfer. She'd only have protection if she'd paid with a credit card or PayPal.

I spent HOURS researching yesterday-both names.

Hers is also on the electoral register, I cross referenced with social media accounts, and of the 12, there are 2 shortlisted where I think it could possibly be 'her' that, or a picture taken from a real person to create a fake profile.

As for his name. ARGHHHHH. Only ONE person has the name on google, and no-one on social media. It is very unusual, and the third search on Google shows a man with the same name being indicted for fraud using various alias's in New York! (We are in the UK).

Not sure if I can share the name. I expect MNHQ would pull this post.

Try and escalate it to the Financial Ombudsman.

Your daughter will need to be careful of Recovery Fraud where she may be contacted by someone advising they can get her money back for a fee.
Her details may also be sold to other fraudsters and it is likely other scam attempts will be tried do needs to be cautious.

Unfortunately there is so much fraud and many people get targeted on social media for investment fraud, money Muling and recruitment fraud as well as other scams.

Getsafeonline is a good fraud prevention website. Action Fraud also has good advice about different scams and Met Police website has fraud prevention booklets you can download... little book of big scams and phone scams.

Fraudsters often use stolen or fake Identitys to cover their tracks.