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?

Consider it to be a variant of Criminal Injuries Compensation, but funded by the banks instead of the taxpayer. If someone is the victim of a crime, they can claim CIC to help with the costs of getting to hospital, getting private sexual assault therapy, etc. The taxpayer funds this because we collectively recognise that victims of crimes shouldn't be penalised financially.

With fraud victims being refunded, we apply the same principle of not penalising victims of fraud as we do to rape and assault, but the banks pay for it. It's about recognising that scammers can use sophisticated tactics and victims can be vulnerable in ways that aren't immediately obvious. It was only when I was diagnosed autistic in my forties that I understood why I had been raped twice: autistic women and girls are vulnerable to sexual assault because we don't read danger signs and misunderstand social cues. When does "coffee" mean a hot drink and when does it mean something else? Yet I have a full-time job, degree, home owner, on paper I don't look like a vulnerable adult.

My point being that it's shit to blame the victim of fraud "surely you must have realised?" just as it's shit to blame a rape victim "surely you knew that coffee means sex?" and in a civilised society we blame the perpetrators.

Your lack of understanding is so apparent!!! Banks won’t Just say “oh bye bye £92m” they will have already accounted for this risk in the rates that they give customers.

One of my banks already does this. Whilst it made matters very slow the holds on funds and checks made were very good. And its a bank with not a very good rep... maybe that's why they have really stepped up.

OH is a retired banker and he thinks the money shouldn't be given back, with the exception of very elderly, frail, those who have been cuckoo'd and those with learning difficulties.
It's not like there isn't plenty of TV programmes and news articles about scammers going around. People should sit up and take notice a bit more

These people are victims of crime.

Well, yes, but some of them seem to go out of their way to be victims. If take your wallet in the street, thats a crime, but if you chase me and throw your wallet at me, is it?

Well he world shill for his former employer's interests, wouldn't he?

But if I hold a fake charity bucket, I'm a thief, even if you chose to get your wallet out and drop a tenner in.

I dont believe anyone would go out or their way to be a victim. How cruel is that comment. I hope nothing ever happens to you and you are faced with being blamed.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia no it's because he thinks some people are stupid.
Doesn't really give a crap about his former employer.
He's retired

My telephone number was spoofed recently, I've had a few people ring and ask why I rang them. I explain it's not me, I've reported that someone is spoofing my number and they really shouldn't ring back to random numbers as it might be part of a scam. One woman has rung me back four times and counting, I despair!

I have sympathy for some but there was one story that pissed me right off the bank did everything short of refusing to give her the money she threw a tantrum caused a scene in the bank the bank manager gave her the money after warning her one more time it was a scam she really upset the staff (who admittedly overstepped) but got her own way got her money LOST her money (because it was a fucking scam) then she was complaining she should have her money back I mean......fucks sake how many warnings do you NEED before personal responsibility kicks in

@babetyouknow

Being the victim of scam is not the same as throwing your wallet at someone in the street.

And you are victim blaming.

I agree with this. My Dad is the type of person that could fall foul of something like this, but thankfully all the online banking falls to my Mum, who is massively suspicious of absolutely everything.

My FIL refuses to have online banking and asks us to help him if he needs a bill paying online or something, so we always have chance to check it first. It used to annoy DH that his Dad wouldn't use internet banking, but the more and more of these scams there are, the happier he is about it.

That said, I also agree that people do have to take responsibility where they have fallen for a scam, as it's not the bank's fault if you've explicitly ignored all the protocols they've put in place.

I was reading this story over the weekend - BBC - My business lost £1.6m in 20 minutes - and thinking, who should be made to be held responsible for falling for a con?

The banks should, however, do more to be able to trace the funds and find out where they end up, to try and recover it from the criminals directly. Of course this is much easier said than done as the money will be out of the country as quick as possible, no doubt to some sort of territory with blurry banking borders.

Of course crime victims should be reimbursed. Fraud takes many forms, not just romance scams. It often involves panicking and intimidating a vulnerable person

but you’re not automatically reimbursed if someone breaks into your house and steals, unless you have insurance.

As a thought perhaps we should all have scam insurance?

Yes!

Perhaps you have a point in this case but a lot of scams are now super sophisticated and even bright rational questioning people get taken in. Last week I heard about a company finance director who was scammed for over a million pounds of his company’s money through a tremendously sophisticated scam. Financial fraud now accounts for 41% of all crime so clearly not all victims are unintelligent. It could happen to anyone. Therefore I voted YABU.

I would worry more about the bonuses that banks pay out their bosses than the crumbs they give back to fraud victims…

but that has nothing to do with this conversation?

I suspect that type of insurance does exist, particularly for businesses, but if you've given away information that you shouldn't have, they'll no doubt reject a claim. Just as a household insurer would reject a claim if you'd left your front door open and someone burgled you.

@Sworntofun well you didn’t read my post then as I’m talking about romance scams not finance scams

A) If people don’t get compensated, and are left impoverished and destitute, we’ll just end up paying for them through the benefits system.

B) Your surface-level analysis of capitalism neglects the central point of capitalism - that there is not just one bank. There are lots of banks, competing with each other to attract customers by offering higher rates on savings accounts and lower rates on loans. Therefore, they have an incentive to guard against fraud, to reduce the amount they pay out in compensation, so they can offer competitive rates to their customers.

I heard a trailer on R4 this morning about this. A couple ‘invested’ £100, then it was worth over £500 within a week.
Their bank warned them umpteen times, delayed payments etc, but they still insisted and ended up losing tens of thousands. The programme will reveal as to whether or not they got their money back.

Although I agree that particularly vulnerable people should be refunded, at what point do individuals have to take some responsibility?

I wish you were more irritated by the scammer and less by the victim...
YABU in my opinion... or if not unreasonable, certainly unfair/judgemental.

But they aren’t getting their money back though, are they? They are getting other money in replacement. If they were getting their money back it would come from the slimy sod who stole it from them. I’m not sure it’s a banks job to carry the can for a customers poor decision making, no matter how compelling the back story.

Eh? My point was that £92 million is so insignificant to these institutions that it will make barely any impact on the rates they offer customers.

£92 million is not - on the scale that banks operate - a lot of money. Especially because it’s not being paid by just one bank - it’s spread out across all of them.

If you think £92m is significant here, you are showing your own lack of financial understanding.