Felt so sad for lady @ supermarket with her latest African money transfer.

[BlueStocking007]

I popped in for a few bits and purchased them at the kiosk, I'm a regular and politely chit chat generally & vice versa.

Lady around 55-60, very well spoken, but did seem slightly tipsy was begging the two other serving staff ( a manager was called) because the lady was wanting to send thousands of pounds to Africa via money transfer. The staff were doing their utmost, to advise that it was very likely this money would be lost, that the gentleman's name had a slight variation ( from the last records) and she had now done this three times. The lady was pleading for them to complete the transaction, the staff did, but said it was the last time

Aibu, to say the staff should have refused.
I totally accept capacity/adult/her decision BUT surely NOBODY who was not vulnerable, lonely ( especially at this time of year) would be sending thousands of pounds to a man in Africa. The supermarket should have carte blanch,with sense and conviction to not do this.
They were clearly & verbally concerned.

Where is the accountability for her ? where is her responsibility. She is an adult, it's her money and if she is stupid enough then the consequences are her. Why must the supermarket staff now play judge and take on her responsibility.

Something similar in our local Tesco which luckily the staff prevented from happening.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/grimsby-news/woman-saved-tesco-staff-tried-1628846.amp

I am very thankful that my Aunt is not on the internet as she would be a prime candidate for this. She has managed to get rid of plenty of money through other scams thanks to 'healthy living' type drug companies who sell her details. At the moment she spends££ on a company that pretend to be some sort of psychic healer (from Czech Republic/Switzerland/Bulgaria et al) and promises £££££ but she has to spend £50 on a magic stone (aka a beach pebble!), they also charged £45 for a booklet on 'magic numbers'. I told my brother he missed a trick there. He could have typed up a similar thing (not fancy at all) and found a beach pebble to sell her!

We have (I think) stopped her taking phone calls from dodgy drug companies (she knows nothing about these drugs and once I asked how her sex life was. She looked askance and I told her the particular pot of pills I picked up from her table were for spicing up her sex life! Trust me she does not have one!).

A friend worked in a post office and an old guy would come in to say he had 'won' a competition and had to send £25 for administrative costs. She told him not to send any money but tell them to take it out of his winnings!

I’ve got Moneygram adverts appearing too!

Isnt it meant to be the season of goodwill and kindness? Seems to me there's an awful lot of negativity in the world already,

Absolutely, because really the world isn't a very nice place.

Call me cynical, call me whatever you like. My default position with people is that I will not trust them until I know 100% it's ok and then there is a very high chance I will say no.

And she was 'a bit tipsy', was she, OP? really?

Banks can and do reject these payment requests all the time. They have a responsibility to look after vulnerable customers and also not complete any transactions which could facilitate financial crime, fraud or money laundering. It’s in the t&c’s of bank accounts. I work in a legal area of a bank dealing with these type of queries and I spend my life agreeing to refuse these transactions for people.

She sounds vulnerable tbh, slightly tipsy? could she have a Neurological disease of some type, many of these disease can make a person appear drunk.

Of course it was a scam, the staff should have called the police. My very elderly neighbours were conned in a similar way, they went to the bank to withdraw a very substantial sum, luckily the staff in our bank were suspicious and called the police and the situation with very swiftly dealt with.

Can’t believe posters on here saying it’s her money etc, how would they feel if it was a member of their family being conned.

I wonder if those stores should have a poster on the wall/laminated sheet they hand out to people coming in sending ££££ to people who aren't family. The MO is always simular as far as I know, so they could say:

'If you are sending money to a person you haven't met because:
They need an urgent operation
A family member has been kidnapped and they need ransom
They've lost all their money in a bad investment
They can fly over to see you but apparently they have to book the flight (etc)
Please be aware all of the above indicate a scam and we will be unable to refund any of the money'

It might at least give some people pause.

Frequently amazed by the number of people on R4 money program (or similar) when reporting on fraud/scams who say stuff like - bank advised us not to, but it's still their fauld that they let us make the transfer, they should have done more, bank needs to refund us...

I appreciate this is a supermarket - staff presumably less trained to deal with this situation, although from what OP says, obviuously aware.

So good of mumsnet to make it easy for us to transfer money by allowing all the adverts I’m seeing right now on this screen. XE.com, money gram etc.
I can open an account in minutes it says here.
No need to leave the house.

I could even transfer the money on my phone.

Of course the shop could do something - they could refuse to serve her if they suspect she is the victim of a crime. Or they could call the police (which is what has happened locally a few times when people have tried to buy large amounts of evouchers)

The flip side to this is that my mum, a pensioner with full mental capacity, was refused access to her own money by her local bank recently. She wanted to make a transfer but was told no, she's very upset about it.

It is awful, I really don't know what more the shop could have done, they tried to convince her not to send it. My friends MIL is currently being scammed by a guy who claims to be in love with her, she is head over heels 'in love with him' and they are planning their new life together, the MIL has never met him, she is secretly sending thousands to him. The family have tried to intervene but there is nothing they can do legally. It is a well know scam, usually based out of Nigeria. Bastards !

Hope she has a lovely wedding to her Nigerian prince 🤞🏻

Principle 3 of the mental capacity act:

"People have the right to make decisions that others might regard as unwise or eccentric. You cannot treat someone as lacking capacity for this reason. Everyone has their own values, beliefs and preferences which may not be the same as those of other people".

It might be a scam, it might not, but if she has capacity (eg is able to weight up the risk/consequences of her decisions) to make her own decisions then not much anyone can do. If this is the third time she's done this she clearly knows what happened after the last 2 times. By all means warn people and make people aware of scams but equally, you cannot nanny or police anyone's money. They have a right to do with it what they wish.

@bluestocking Why didn't you stop her OP? I presume you were there, yes? If you're a mental health expert and you knew it was a scam, why didn't you swoop in and save the day?

@KaptainKaveman Why on earth are you questioning the fact I wrote she was a bit tipsy?
What would be the point of telling lies?
I'm not a creative writer. I'm not a prolific poster? I stated what I observed and was told. Your response is childish & belligerent,

I find it absolutely bizarre that the same thread, has been read completely differently by so many & responded to in some instances like another thread's been read! some with no reference to any additional info, some completely random responses, some make no sense whatsoever, some make very coherent, thought out responses and then you get the standard aibu gang making argumentative & goady snipes.

I do get from responses, it is felt the responsibility is ultimately down to the adult, regardless if she "APPEARS A BIT TIPSY "{ a generalisation/observation - not factual :eg, not steady/loud-quiet responses/not fully coherent. etc etc etc

I felt sadness and empathy for this lady, I felt she was vulnerable.
If there were perhaps ways to intercept on suspicion ( clearly noted from last time and this time) It may have saved her possibly lifesavings/further wages/income, when she has enough support to realise at a further date her vulnerability/ lack of awareness may have cost her dearly.

Instead of shouting about you KNOWING IT WAS A SCAM why don’t you tell us how you know that?

Is the OP the African Man from Africa? who speaks, you know, African?

You've laboured the African issue a bit haven't you, OP? well, a lot actually....

Why are you all getting in such a state? It's a theoretical story with no way of knowing what happened. And anyone who thinks the nice African men are an unfair stereotype obviously have excellent email spam filters rather than virtue signal by screaming discrimination, look at these men and their organized crime networks. Of course if they were rich and white you would be after their greedy shitty bastard blood.

Very difficult situation. I dare say it was impossible to convince her that it was a scam - these criminals can gain such a powerful psychological hold over people.

An elderly neighbour of ours - frail and very naive, but no dementia - was scammed out of a huge amount of money by someone initially purporting to be from Nat-West Bank, telling she’d won a huge lottery cash prize - only there had to be payments for ‘tax’ first.

We only found out after it had been going on for some time. She was utterly convinced that it was on the level - nothing dh or I said could persuade her.

She would NOT have the police involved - not that they could have done anything, since all the money had gone via Western Union to the US or Jamaica.
The law takes the view that unless someone has been officially deemed to lack mental capacity, they are free to throw their money away as they wish.

In the end this lady’s.children had a ‘trusted calls only’ system installed on her phone - it had all been done on the phone - and had her mail redirected. But a huge amount of money was already gone.

It is a huge problem. Relatives of anyone at all vulnerable need to be very vigilant. Might add that I am convinced of how our neighbour was targeted. She was addicted to those wordsearch ‘competitions: where you conveniently phone in all your details at God knows how much per minute.
Scammers compile what they like to call ‘suckers’ lists’ so I’m sure this is how she was first targeted.

It's so sad and scary. I have elderly grandparents who luckily have 3 daughters (including my mum) all powers of attorney, because they didn't have a clue what was coming in and going out. Honestly they had no idea of their (very healthy!) balance. It takes one phone call/knock on the door and a hand over of a credit card.

This would deeply affect me for ages OP because it did look like a scamming situation. I've watched documentaries on it and the poor lonely women get sucked in so easily and they lose everything. Must be SO incredibly difficult for their children/family to see too.

OP, I’m sure it was a scam - as you say, it’s a very common one, but if she was insistent and staff had explained the risks to her, then they have no right to stop her spending her money.