My stupid Fucking Father

[Itcouldbeyou]

Hi I have NC as this could be outing and please be gentle with me
I’m wondering if any of you lovely people have any advice apologies as this is long
My father 72 I would say a vulnerable person who is naive and gullible and carer to my mother who has Alzheimer’s and Dementia was contacted by phone last year by the National Lottery Centre asking him if he wanted to join a syndicate for the Irish Lottery
He very stupidly agreed and paid £700 for the year
Every two weeks or so he was then contacted by an account manager asking him if he wanted to join more syndicates for varying amounts of money
When he said he couldn’t afford it they would do a pre authorisation or a smaller amount to see what he could afford. Then they would ring back and ask to take that amount
. I believe that this phone call was recorded but the actual hard sell call wasn’t recorded . Over a period of a year he has used his life savings of around £25000 maybe more
Completely all gone from his account

While I accept that he has been the most stupid person ever and I want to kill him 😂 he is my father and murder isn’t legal so I’m stuck with him .
To be honest I am more annoyed at his bank Lloyds who never once queried these payments
My father has banked with Lloyd’s for 50 years and has never not once made any payments like this to anyone .

The only payment they have ever queried and refused to pay was his car insurance that legitimate and they stopped the payment and he had to go into the bank to authorise this payment and this was a few years ago .
So why on earth did they not stop or query any of these payments
From what I have read the banks have sophisticated fraud systems set up to alert them to unusual payments so did they not think that someone spending 2000 plus in one go every month a bit unusual

I’m asking because whenever I buy or do something that’s not within my spending pattern my card is stopped and I get a call or a text asking me if I have authorised this payment .
I couldn’t even use my card when on holiday recently as it was out of my usual spending pattern
On occasions stuff from Amazon has been cancelled because of the fraud alert
When googling them The

Lottery Centre is based in the Isle of Man and other elderly people have had exactly the same thing happen cold call and then regular amounts taken
I can’t call it a scam as he authorised the payments but like the others he was elderly and was pressured by hard sell to do so and is also a fucking idiot

However it’s the bank that I’m really annoyed with
Any advice on if I am able to complain to the bank about their lack prevention of unusual transactions on an account would be much appreciated

I’ve checked my fathers bank statements for the past five years and there has never been any payments of these amounts
They queried one payment of 900 for his car insurance and refused to pay it one year and made him go into the bank to verify the payment
So I’m just really shocked that they allowed payments of over double that amount to leave his account month after month without a single check
I went to take £2000 from my bank a few weeks ago and my DH was standing a few feet away and they ask me quietly if I was taking the money out for myself and not anyone else
I told them he was just the carrying my bags
So that’s why I’m surprised it didn’t come up under any fraud alert
The transactions were not normal for my fathers account at all

to you and to your dad.

This is why my Dsis and I are happy our Dmum doesn't have a computer.

Thank you for everyone who has taken the time to reply with help
It’s much appreciated so many thanks

Not sure if this has been mentioned before. Contact Martin Lewis the money guy. He is on Facebook and Twitter. He has lots of contacts and may be able to help.

That’s awful - can’t believe the bank did put a stop on his account.

The RBS stopped one of my transactions when I tried to purchase a Canadian Visa from a site that was going to charge more than type standard fee.

SteeperThanHell
That’s exactly my point
I’ve had numerous transactions flagged and refused on both my credit and debit card and most were under £100
That’s why I can’t understand why not one signal payment was ever flagged as unusual

My DH banks with Lloyds and at least once a month get either a phone call or text asking him to confirm the payment

What an awful situation, he's been royally scammed. It does make sense to start by going through the bank to see what their response is. Unfortunately your father has been stupid, but 72 really isn't elderly (I know plenty of people in their 70s still running businesses, dealing stocks and shares and working in responsible positions) and he does have full capacity. Making unwise decisions doesn't mean you've lost your marbles. £700 isn't a huge amount of money to transfer at once and doubtless the other amounts were much smaller. I am really sorry but I don't see that the bank is to blame here.

I don't know that you will get anywhere with this, because your dad is only 72 and presumably has capacity. However, flagging it up to Martin Lewis on social media and contacting Lloyds Bank might just stop another gullible person being sucked into this kind of scenario.

Being classed as 'vulnerable' is nothing to do with having capacity or not. I am in my early 50s and have full capacity, but I could have been classed as vulnerable on at least two occasions recently, as I cared for my elderly mother with dementia and then suffered a bereavement.

Do you have the name of the company/companies who took a scan at age of him?

Is it worth trying to get the word out about the company itself so other people can tell vulnerable people in their lives to not take calls from them.

Maybe leave reviews about how they take advantage of the elderly and the amount they've taken from your father.

I've read the comments up to 18.45 and I know you've mentioned contacting bank and police, if it's legit company with genuine lottery syndicates it may be worth contacting them (they just respond faster on social media)

For what's its worth, being intelligent and smart doesn't make someone immune from being duped and taken advantage of. My fil has been caught twice by scams and he's honestly not stupid, he's older and the tech we have now makes some scams hard to detect and if you don't understand today's tech it can make spotting fake emails harder, my fil didn't even know what a "web address" was for example so didn't know his to spot a fake link. Im over cautious and ignored messages that came out of blue from HMRC asking for more info thinking it was fake but turns out they do contact people by text sometimes.

I'm sure he feels just as sick as you, I hope he gets his money back.

£700 was the first amount
The other amounts were between 900 and 2100 from what I can see
Monthly around 2000 -2500 was leaving his account
I’ve now gone back through 7 years of statements and he has never not once had such large amounts leaving his account on a monthly basis
The most was car insurance and the bank refused that and made him go into the bank and take ID and authorised the payment in front of him
This was because it was a Spanish company taking the money and it was a large amount and not consistent with his regular payments

The company is called The Lottery Center and they are based in the Isle of Man
There are quite a few bad reviews on line about them doing exactly the same thing

Lloyds have 22 million customers. They don't have staff looking over accounts thinking 'ooh that's a bit odd, ill put a stop on that'. They have a system in place that relies on algorithms, as all banks do, and there are numerous reasons a payment can be flagged. For whatever reason your father's payment wasn't. And even if it had been, your father would have confirmed anyway that it was a genuine payment. Instead of complaining that the payment should have been flagged, which will get you nowhere, you need to contact the fraud department and advise them he has been the victim of a scam. They will investigate this. I would also notify the police. I wouldn't hold out much hope of getting the money back though.

The woman in fraud depart said the company was a regular knew all about them already.

You'd think if a bank was aware of a company that scams and commits fraud they'd have the ability to block every single payment to that company instead of having to deal with regular fraud claims and refunds when they already know the company is fraudulent. Surely it would be as beneficial to the bank to block these payments as it's them refunding while fraudulent company keeps it.

I really don’t hold much hope of getting anything back
But if I can do something and maybe it helps one other person from being in the same position then I will be happy

I feel for your dad, I really do but had anyone ever made the bank aware he was vulnerable? My dad is a similar age and he would be livid if he thought he’d been written off as vulnerable purely because of his age.

Unfortunately because the amounts are relatively small, even though they’re larger than payments he usually makes, they probably wouldn’t flag up every time, that’s why the scammers do lots of smaller transactions rather than one large transaction that would be picked up. I agree with PP, get him a call minder phone and brief him on the techniques the scammers use so he doesn’t get caught out again, he’ll probably be on a scammers list now.

Of course it's scam - you need to report it. Have a read of this:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/stop-scams/

And definitely try Moneybox as they may be interested.

So sorry this has happened to your Dad.

I'm sure you can get all of the money back. Your father has been taken advantage of. Don't give up. Start with the bank, lodge a complaint, as people say, then the Ombudsman, and meanwhile try and contact the Lottery organisation and let them know what you are doing. They will rely on people not following up; if you show them you mean business they will act.

I would also complain to lloyds and from there the ombudsman. And make sure your mum and dad are flagged as vulnerable with them.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/scams/reporting-a-scam/

This type of crime really pisses me off.
Try Which - they may be able to help.

www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/scams

legalservice.which.co.uk/home?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0rX_teLV4wIVS7DtCh095wkHEAAYASAAEgLTe_D_BwE

Barclays flag unusual activity on our accounts, we set up a direct debit to the uni. they checked that immediately.

Sorry - just seen posts above. Plenty of options anyway!

Once again thank you so much for all of your advice
Your all bloody wonderful and have made me cry a bit.

Just googled who they are and found some bad reviews but looks like some people have been successful in getting their money back.