To think there must hope. Lost £5,000 ebay scam

[drnoitall]

Ddh bought something on ebay.
Paid bank transfer as alot of money (£5,000)
He received an email from ebay saying account he purchased from had been hacked and listing removed.
Looks increasingly like a scam.
Contacted police fraud department (don't know actual name of it) his bank and recipient bank.
Seller says delivery has been arranged for tomorrow at 9am.
Nothing can be done yet as it could turn up.
But, this is the bad but that has us feeling so miserable and annoyed.
When we put the contact phone number the seller gave into google it was the exact phone number listed on a page for an overseas "adult" service.
I want to cry, I hate seeing my dh so miserable.
Can anyone help with advice, are there some protective rights that we need to know?
This is a very upsetting and a lot of money to us , can our bank demand the money back from the sellers bank? Can ebay do anything?
Thank you in advance, fingers crossed someone can help.

OP for you. So sorry this has happened. In future you and your DH need to always discuss paying over large sums of money to anyone for anything. That sounds patronising, but YKWIM. You have been brilliant over this. I believe in karma - it'll get the fraudsters.

So sorry for you.
DH's ebay account got hacked a few years ago. He noticed and alerted ebay who stopped the account. I expect that's how they realised it had happened.

I hope you do get your money back. I find it ridiculous that money can go to a uk bank account and no one can, or will, do anything about it.
There should be a paper trail to follow. Even if the recipient account was fraudulent the criminal must have accessed their money at some point so they would be on bank CCTV or traceable online.

I'm so sorry. I had everything crossed for you xx

Sorry if this has already been posted... But if you did a bank transfer then surely you could find out the name and location of who the money was sent to?

Phone the police again, maybe you just got somebody unhelpful the first time?

Hi

The same thing happened to me last year. I paid £670 via bank transfer for a pram that never materialised.

I managed to get the seller's contact details via eBay (there's a bit in customer services that enables you to see their registered address (just town) - can't quite remember how I did it but someone on the eBay forum on here helped.

I then reported it to the local police (Met) who didn't really seem that interested. However, because it was all done online I was able to screen shot and copy and paste everything. I then gave all of that information, plus the bank details efc etc to the police.

The police force where the thief lived (Somerset) then got in touch and were able to use all the information to arrest the woman and charge her with theft and fraud.

It got all the way to court but failed because the PayPal rep didn't turn up to court so the case folded.

It was handled very badly by the police and CPS but the fact is that they traced the person and almost got my
Money back.

Don't give up hope x

OP, there is a financial problem page in Saturday's Daily Telegraph.

Can't remember if you have to go to them before the Ombudsman, or after.

Might be worth a try as they seem to have some clout with banks going from past examples.

Good luck and

drnoitall I've been reading your thread with a lump in my throat since yesterday. We were scammed a few years ago by a "travel agency". They promised us cheap flights abroad but never issued us tickets. We'd paid 1500 through bank transfer (this is how they get away with it). After weeks and weeks of trying to get my tickets my brother and DH went to their "office" in London. It was a dirty little cabin and There wasn't anyone there apart from one woman who claimed she didn't know anything about the company. My brother is a solicitor and managed to scare her into admitting she was affiliated with them and miraculously went and withdrew £500 to give back to us.

I managed to get another £500 out of them and booked flights with lastminute.com instead. Whilst abroad I received an email telling me the company had gone bankrupt (the fuckers). They still owed me £500.

I alerted trading standards but they couldn't do anything as I'd transferred the money. It was a really shit time in my life. I still froth at the mouth thinking about it. My DH was just like you, very understanding and didnt say or do anything to make me feel worse.

Sorry this has happened to you. The most important life lesson I've learnt is NEVER transfer money to any company like this.

So sorry for you op, and your dh, tbh, nice people just don't expect scumbags to do things like this - hope it's not going to leave you too desperately broke, such a horrible amount to lose.

I know this won't help, but just out of curiosity, can you locate the bank branch through the sort code?

The payment may not have been claimed yet by their bank.

I remember when I spoke to my bank, they said the recipient's bank has about 5 working days? to claim the money. If they don't, it 'falls off' and has to be put through again.

I'm not sure how this works with a BACS but I remember having some hope when it happened with my card, as they took well over that long to claim it. But they did in the end and the bank had an obligation to submit it.

Difference is it was a debit card, and I don't know if the bank has the same obligations with a BACS payment.

Can't see if you know whether the payment has left the account yet?

Fwiw I have paid by bank transfer a few times - fairly large amounts, I suppose the difference was that the item was so peculiar that no one would really think of using it as a front for dodgy deals, and secondly I had had some pretty long email convos with the seller, and googled him, and found his very serious blogs about the item and loads of photos, where he worked etc.

Also he said paypal was fine if I wanted to. So I trusted him. I was fortunate, it was all great, but I think it is always best to do paypal for something you can't check up on/see first etc.

Silly thing OP, if it was a business purchase, there are ways to mitigate the cost to you

I'm very sorry this happened to you both. I really do feel for you.

For all of those saying try and get the sellers details etc, it makes no difference as the person who robbed the op is NOT the seller, they broke into the sellers account, the genuine seller will have no idea that this all took place until it was to late.

I really do hope the police start taking you seriously, can you work out the location of the sellers bank from the sort code? Then contact that local police station?

Again, I'm so sorry that this happened to you.

Thanks again for your replies. It has been nice to see there some caring people willing the best outcome for someone they don't know .

I did the sort code search. Which didn't correspond.
It's was too late by then anyway.

To those who pursued the banks and got money back
how long did it take and when did you start?

Do I do that before the ombudsman ?

I believe bacs takes days to process, bt is a few hours.

Your right floral.
That's what it appears.
That's what we need ebay to confirm.
We have sort code and know the branch.
I'm not sure if we need to push for a thought investigation or if it happens anyway.

I would really suggest posting this on the help boards on beys, they have a lot of very helpful posters who would of seen this before sadly, but may have more ideas for a solution for you.

community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Buyer-Central/bd-p/21900000767

I hope your DH can stop beating himself up, he is not in the wrong, those robbing scum are the only ones in the wrong.

If I knew the branch, I would be contacting their police force with all my screen shots and proof. It may be a long shot but has to be worth a try. The fraudsters bank must have an address for that account, even if that address turns out to be false then surely it's a start for the police?

You also have to wonder if the bank can be held somewhat responsible for a false address being used in setting up a bank account, surely they check this?

Good luck op, really rooting for you.

Feel for you OP, I really do and I admire you not tearing strips off your DH.

I'd get in touch with 5Live, Jeremy Vine, The Daily Mail...honestly - these phone-in shows love this as it gives people a lesson.

I'm struggling to see how any publicity will help. The OP's DH willingly transferred £5k to someone else's bank account- where's there to go with that?

That's useful floral thanks for the link. I'll look into that.

Bear - I think you are missing the point, yes the bt was willful, on the basis of actually purchasing something. Not to just give a fucking gift of £5,000.

I don't doubt that OP, and if you want to get arsey with someone, try your husband, not me.

I was just making the point that going to Jeremy vine or the daily mail is just going to make your husband look like a naive twat.

Persuing trading standards, ebay, the police might just come up trumps.

I feel for you OP, I've been through the same with my DH. We were victims of a holiday villa scam a few years ago, the villa was advertised through a reputable holiday company who act as advertisers for private rents. We booked our flights separately and found the villa on the website, my DH booked it for us and a large group of friends and then everyone passed their money to DH. We were about 4 hours from leaving for the airport before it became apparent that it was a scam, we only discovered it because it was on the news.

I wasn't worried at first, I assumed DH had used the credit card which we have insured against fraud. Turns our he didn't, he didn't want to have any debt so he did it via bank transfer. I know exactly how you feel, I can't understand how so many posters are saying that you should have gone mad with him. Watching your DH so disappointed in himself is bloody awful, it's not the time to be angry.

Our case was used as part of an investigation which has never been concluded. We haven't had any sign of our money and it's been about 6 years. I'm sorry I don't have a positive outcome to share with you and I hope you and your DH get your money back.

Thank you pans. Sorry to hear about your situation.
It never occured to me to be mad at him because he is so mad with himself already. What is there to say? what good would it do? In reality when something shit happens you show and support by understanding and moving on.
We will do all we can to recover the money. It's unlikely we both know that.
For richer, for poorer, I can't judge him, I'm not perfect myself.
Bear. One things for sure, my dh couldn't look like a twat. He simply isn't one.

This is such a horrible shitty thing to happen - I really feel for you.

I bought something via bank transfer just before Christmas which never arrived. They communicated with me, gave me the option to collect in person, assured me the item was in the post then disappeared. The Bank transfer method meant I had no protection whatsoever.

I think publicity would help as people aren't naive, buying and selling online is so commonplace now it's simply a new way to defraud people. Having experienced this myself, NOW I would never buy anything by bank transfer again, but people need to be made aware.

What pissed me off the most is that I had the sort code and bank account number and my bank gave me the bank name, branch, and telephone number for their bank. Their bank have their name and address. They have the power to freeze an account or give details to the police surely? Frustrating to know the person I was complaining to at their end had the thiefs details on a screen in front of them.

I don't know what steps you've taken OP, but I called the police then action fraud and obtained a crime number. I called my bank and they have me the thiefs bank branch, I then called them and told them what had taken place by one of their customers and have them the crime ref. no. If it had been £5,000, and not £50, I'd be talking to any paper that would listen about that bank being happy to let their customers defraud people unless something was done about it.

Good luck xx

No advice to offer OP, that hasn't already been given. What a sh1t thing to happen. Unfortunately these people are 'professional' scammers, constantly working out new ways to catch people out.
Hope that you can retrieve even some of the money. It's absolutely sickening.