Why should we all pay for those who’ve been scammed?

[Raisinganiguana]

I’m watching Steph’s Packed Lunch and there’s a woman on there who sadly got romance scammed for £30k. Afterwards, the financial expert was really clear that if this happens to you, the banks have to give you your money back. He even said they can’t ‘weasel’ out of it.

I’m sorry for the lady, but why should everyone else pay for what is essentially someone choosing to give someone else money? We don’t pay people back if they gamble it away, so why do we demand it just because they’ve fallen for a story?

She wasn’t someone very old or vulnerable. She chose to send this man money.

btw the scammer’s story was ridiculous - and the man’s photos were actually of some super hot model - so how one falls for these is another thing….especially as there are back to back warnings everywhere and on every bloody programme nowadays.

AIBU that people need to take some responsibility?

Agree.

Online banking has been pushed as convenient etc for the benefit of customers but it isn't really about that, it saves them loads of money. The insight that a bank manager might have had about their customers is all gone & gentle questioning at the counter about a transaction that seems odd doesn't happen any more - hardly anyone goes into a physical bank to make a payment these days or if you do, you have to use a machine instead of speaking to a person.

It's pushed the burden of checking whether something is legit to the customer, not the bank. And vulnerable people are the victims. You can be vulnerable in all sorts of ways.

Oh, and by relationship, I mean living in the same house relationship, not a virtual romance. He was still slowly but surely emptying never touched savings accounts.

One thing I think banks need to do is work out a way of stopping a pending payment. I got caught by a scam website earlier this year - I'm not proud of it and it really upset me. As soon as I checked my account it became clear it was a scam as the payee was not who I thought I'd paid. I called the bank who were clear that the payment was pending and hadn't left my account but that I could only try to claim it back once it had properly gone out - into the pockets of the scammers.

It would save them a lot of money and time if they could stop what are clearly scam payments in their tracks. I was lucky enough to get it back which I was extremely grateful for

Is there a grey area / sliding scale in your opinion? Or is it as black and white as if you lose money then tough?
For example, if someone stole your purse and went on a spending spree - is the onus on you to have protected your purse better?

I do have to agree that when you see a slightly overweight 68 year old grandma from Bury convinced that 23 year old Parisian model Pierre has fallen deeply in love with her you think…

OH COME ON!!!!! 😂😂😂

But I wouldn’t begrudge her the money back for being a silly old fool!

It's great to live in such a caring society.

How many threads have you started about bankers' bonuses? How many about the Tory's Covid contracts to their 'pals'? There are millions of things, I'm annoyed about paying for - banks having to abide by financial regulation and the financial ombudsman isn't on the list.

@countrygirl99 All very valid questions. It's a hard balance to get right. I mainly pontificate on this stuff so I don't have to sit in a bank and try to implement it!

I can't imagine living my life this bitter over vulnerable people

92 million is nothing.

Are you that bored to be worried about something that has zero effect on you?

The Banks are dealing with our money so we are indeed paying for these scams. Banks should not be liable for other people's naivity or straight forward stupidity, only if the bank can be shown to be culpable should they pay. They are being treated as free insurance.

If they are that vulnerable maybe they should have some limit set on what payments they can make without some "power of attorney" type of approval from someone else? It seems ridiculous to allow people who are easily scammed to have access to a fully featured bank account that allows them to gift away all their money?

I got scammed out of $500 when I tried to pay my electric bill recently. I caught on before the money had even left the bank. I called them immediately and canceled DH’s card etc…but they still couldn’t get it back for me.

So my first instinct is to feel a bit miffed that someone who is choosing to be silly gets theirs back when I can’t but…I also know the feeling, the horror of knowing you’ve been an idiot and your money is gone. (We’re broke as a joke right now and $500 is a lot) So I don’t really begrudge them. (Of course I’m not in the UK so it’s not my economy anyway)

Another lover of bingo cards! None of these 'reasons' should make the banks liable for stupidity.

My MIL, who is now dead, was so close to being caught by a scammer. She found it really upsetting and didn’t want her own money anymore as she blamed herself. She was elderly and trusted what she thought was a bank employee. Her account had £2k in it, so nothing like these big sums in the op. When she was dying and out of it on lots of drugs, she was having hallucinations that people were stealing from her. Imagine scamming and traumatising someone so much that their dying thoughts are about getting robbed. Awful.

perhaps op it would help you to think of these people as victims of crime, rather than people who made a bad decision. Yes ok they did make a bad decision, but they did it in good faith having been tricked.

YABU if you believe that if the banks didn't have to pay out for scam money they would pay you more interest on your savings 🙄

Do the banks ever go after the scammer to recover the money, does anybody know?

YANBU
Hacking and things should be refunded when it’s no fault of the individual, but ‘I willingly transferred my life savings to a man I had never met and now he’s stood me up at our wedding’ is utterly ridiculous. Personal responsibility springs to mind.

I watch a lot of these 'Catfish' type programmes, as I'm very aware that I, as a single 60-something homeowner who is occasionally lonely, could be prey. But a lot of people who aren't very tech-savvy have never heard of catfishing, and take things at face value, plus these scammers are clever, working from a 'bible' (which tells them what to say in every circumstance) and have a lot of experience at getting money out of people.

So I think that there should be far more done to educate people in how romance scammers operate, as well as banks making them aware BEFORE they send money to accounts that often don't even have the name of their 'fiance' on them. Prevention is the answer, most banks won't reimburse if they can show that they've done 'due diligence' by alerting a customer to a likely fraud. It's sad, but when someone has been told repeatedly by a bank that the money they are sending is going to a scam account, and yet they still choose to send it - then whose fault is it, really?

I think the op has a point. The comparison with gambling holds up.

I would be unhappy to have to subsidise her fantasies so if she chose to give him the money with no-one twisting her arm or holding her granny to ransom then so be it. Being naive and being 'vulnerable' are not the same, 'vulnerable' is one of words used to try and shut down a discussion.

But that is completely different - someone actually living with you and acting like a partner vs someone you’ve never met.

Surely you see that?

I'd rather we pay towards the modest millions for vulnerable adults to recover their savings from scam artists, than the billions creamed out of us in interest rate scamming by the banks and past financial crash bail outs (whilst still paying out monstrous bonuses), which we will no doubt be propping up again as banks have over lent for mortgages AGAIN and that may come home to roost very soon as the early 2022 mortgage deals expire. :/

The scammers can be very sophisticated. Don’t pride yourself that you definitely couldn’t fall for one, that’s not true.

They generally are not, its an idea we put about to convince ourselves its not our fault if we fall for them, but the vast majority of scams are not even slightly sophisticated. People will send money to the most obvious, easily spotted scams, you would not believe how easy it is to part some people from their money.

I'm about as confident as I can be that I'm never going to fall for a scam. It would have to be something new and very very sophisticated and I've never seen anything I might concieveably fall for (I've worked in this area)

Not everyone is completely savvy and some scams are incredibly sophisticated. Don't be a dick and assume it's only down to carelessness or ignorance.

Of course people who get scammed should be protected. Happy for a teeny tiny % of my mortgage interest to pay for that.

That is such a vile comment.

You think that the elderly, the vulnerable, those with learning difficulties should be removed from society through "natural selection"? What do you think should happen to them if they have no money left because they have been scammed? Starve to death? Freeze in their homes? Some other form of "natural selection."

I assume you have a. never made a mistake in your life and b. have never known or loved anyone who falls into those categories.