Have I been involved in fraud ?!

[cakeslenon6]

Hey everyone, I need some advice because I’m panicking right now.

I received a call from a friend I trust who said their account wasn’t working and they needed to make a payment for something. They asked if someone could send money to my account and then I forward it to my Revolut account so they could complete a payment through a Moonpig page. I agreed and didn’t really think anything of it at the time.

I received a transfer of £1,306 and followed their instructions. A few hours later, I tried to send the money on, but my account was suddenly restricted.

I checked my banking messages and they’re now asking for additional information about where the money came from, whether I know the person, and to provide any supporting evidence.

I’ve responded explaining what my friend told me and I’ve also sent a screenshot of the Moonpig request they mentioned. However, the conversation originally happened over the phone, so I don’t have any text messages or written proof of them asking me to do this.

I’m now really worried because I feel like I may have unknowingly been involved in fraud, and I don’t know what this means for me or what I should do next.

I have a holiday coming up next month and I’ve never experienced this before will the police get involved or would I have my account closed down what’s going to happen ?!

It’s the C word about virtual money. But I can see your posts, yet mind is still hidden about the same thing that I posted last night!

Moonpig and Revolut? Girl, take a financial safety class NOW.

Most of this low level fake buying/selling muling goes on via Facebook marketplace and its pretty easy for the banks to distinguish who the victims are. You would likely be given the benefit of the doubt if nothing like this had happened before and your story stacks up. Recourse is via the Financial Ombudsman and they can tell banks to take names off the cifas register however they cannot order an account be reopened and you would likely have to open an account elsewhere. Its in all banks T&Cs that they can close accounts for any reason.

These scams are becoming so sophisticated. Voice scams are particularly worrying. The sound very genuine. Its one of the reasons you should never have a personally recorded voicemail message which can then be recorded and lifted to copy your voice.

Why can't you mention the c word? Im confused

Just as an aside its incredibly unlikely that AI voice was used for this type of scam. Sometimes money muling contains whole chains of unwitting victims. Hopefully the OP friend is one of these and hasnt deliberately involved her in fraud. Fraudsters do often use acquaintances they just know from school, college etc though for this sort of thing. OP will need to talk to the bank first though or will be 'tipping off'

How many personalised birthday cards does your 'friend' need?

Can you WhatsApp your friend now and ask them to reiterate what they wanted you to do? That way you will have something to show the bank

Money laundering definitely.

Sounds like a dodgy c-money scam. If you didn’t speak to your friend in person it’s likely that scammers were posing as him and it’s possible the ‘bank’ isn’t the bank either

Moon pay not moonpig. They're a 3rd party payment processing company

That’s actually an offence, it’s called Tipping off.

They absolutely should not alert their friend

Moonpay isn’t a bank. It’s a crypto trading site, ie untraceable.

@cakeslenon6 I believe you didn’t know .
If it was me I’d call the bank , I prefer to talk than online . I’d also be suspicious now that it wasn’t the bank .

Explain what’s happened , and ask if they know what’s going on . Like others have said if it’s a common scam they will know you are the innocent party who was dragged into it .

This is 100% a type of money laundering. Worse, it may be push payment fraud - this is where you will lose the original amount sent to your account.

Push payment fraud is where you you are told to move money to another account for "reasons" - are you 100% sure the money really come in or have you just received a text or something saying the funds have been credited?.

You need to speak to your bank, and tell them you now believe they were right to stop the transaction.

You apologise, describe yourself as naive and 100% give up the person who told you to do it.

You will, I believe, be seen as one of the victims rather than a perpetrator.

Yes, you have been involved in fraud and this is a scam whereby someone asks you to receive money and its passed on to services like Revolut or MoonPay to move funds quickly (often into crypto, which is harder to trace).

The original £1306 has likely come from stolen bank account, someone else being scammed or fraudulent transactions.

The bank has noticed you receiving a suspicious payment and trying to pass in on hence why your account has been restricted. Banks have a legal duty to do this under anti money laundering laws.

You need to contact the bank and be very open and honest about what has happened. Do NOT try to move the money again.

Didn’t you wonder why your friend, whose account “wasn’t working” was able to send you a money request but for some reason couldn’t send it straight to the other person? Why did you even need to be involved? This was so obviously dodgy. Someone asking if some other random person could send you money that you could then send on… have you just not paid any attention to the hundreds of warnings about not going exactly that?

His account was working fine. He could receive the money from you, so he could have received it from the other person. Clearly money laundering.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES CONTACT YOUR FRIEND.

I cannot say this more strongly, your best course of action is to give their name to the police.

Ahh, that will teach me to read the entire thread before posting early in the morning. 😊 Never heard of moonpay before and what is the ‘c word’?

I don’t know how we get the message over to people about protecting their bank account.

In the legitimate world there would be absolutely no reason or need for a “friend” to pay a large some of money into your bank account, for it then to be transferred immediately somewhere else by you, so it has to be dodgy.

Not quite the same, but I was paying for my paving to be done by bank transfer (a friend of my husband was doing it at mates rates and owned a legit company) but my bank wouldn’t let me send the money over as it was over £1000 and they contacted me about fraud etc, on the call he asked if I knew the person, what it was for, did I have an invoice for the amount and they refused to allow me to send the money. I had to transfer it to my husband to send over and his bank allowed him with no issues.

I think it’s more to protect you from scams etc

Mumsnet will hide any posts that mention that form of currency as it is often associated with dodgy financial dealings. Apparently.

So you did this on behalf of a friend of a friend? Do you even know them personally? Yes your redflags should have been raised, sounds like some sort of tax evasion or money laundering scam. Look out for any further “deposits” and requests. Did you make the transfer yet? Best to discuss with your bank fraud team what action they need to take. Your account may be frozen initially,

We can't say what the "c" word is or MN will hide our posts (or a bot will). But it's a form of currency that roughly rhymes with Hypno.

In my whole 54 years on this planet I have never been contacted by a "friend" telling my a story about bank accounts refusing transfers and if I could just accept a payment into an account then pass it onto another account at a dodgy bank which I've never heard of. It's not a thing.

Unless the "friend" is criminal. Well done to the bank for blocking it.

Same. The story sounds dodgy to me and a red flag would have been a weird financial institution called Moon Pay - sorry OP.