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?

Gambling isn’t a crime.

So? The issue is the same, they are manipulated or drawn into giving away their money. What is the difference?

But people being scammed rarely recognise they are being scammed. They are in love, thye think they are helping the love of their life. They have been 'worked on' for momnths at this stage, it's a slow process. It's only when it's too late, and then it takes them weeks to realise what has happened. So a little emssage popping up asking "do you know the person you are sending money to" is hardly helping, because they think they do know the person, they think they are getting married etc etc...

Is it really true that banks have to reimburse the money?

Because if so, what's to stop me sending my life savings western union to a friend in Nigeria and then getting repaid by the bank?

@babetyouknow , I know a woman who has been scammed not once, not twice but three times by different men . She's intelligent (debatable I guess) , holds down a good job etc. She was warned multiple times that the first bloke probably didn't work for MI5 , the second one probably wasn't going to invest her money in a restaurant and the third one wasn't going to use her money to build a house for them.

Hmm. Do the banks have to pay back the money? Really?

I once saw an interview with a policeman who investigates scams where he said "everyone has a point in their life when they are vulnerable to a scam." Food for thought as you sit on your high horse.

What rates do you feel banks would reduce without paying out for scams?

Interest rates are linked to BOE rates and set to achieve a profit. While these scams may seem like a lot of money to you, it is really nothing to a large UK bank and it’s ridiculous that you assume it would have any impact on the fees you pay.

Dont be mean, people get scammed. It’s sad they believe it but it really doesn’t impact you.

One is illegal activity and the other isn’t. I simply don’t agree that victims of crime should be told tough luck , you should have had more intelligence about you. It is rarely that simple , many victims are very vulnerable which is exactly why they are targeted and fall foul to these scams in the first place. Nothing anyone says on this thread will change my mind on that.

Banks are respected, trusted, pivotal institutions in our society.

Really, @Harella? Pivotal, yes. The rest is a joke.

A lot of the older people who fall for these 'romance scams' where a stunning 26 years old falls madly for a less than lovely 60+ years old, and I say that as a ltl 75 years old, are not victims of crime, they're victims of their own delusions. Why is it not possible for people to acknowledge their own short-comings, nothing's ever their fault?

Yes I agree, and since over 80% on here agree with the Op, it appears that we're in the majority.

I think scams vary in their degree of sophistication but come on, banks these days constantly check that you know who you are paying before they allow a payment to go through so why should they be liable if you choose to give your life savings to a complete stranger when you have been warned numerous times that it could be a scam. Why should banks be having to pay out compensation for crime if they were not to blame for it?

Agree OP. Not only that, I have long suspected that most people who get scammed this way know fine well what's going on but are enjoying it so much - the attention, the feeling of being wanted and valued - that they push it to the backs of their minds and just keep sending the money. It's only when it's worn off or the recipient does a disappearing act that they look at their hollow bank account and are regretful. The chemicals released by the brain at the beginning of a relationship are similar to those who use drugs. I believe these people are paying for a "hit" of "love" and attention. Banks wouldn't be expected to pay for any other kind of high would they?

The chances that the banks would offer better interest rates if they weren't paying this compensation are, frankly, negligible. They would just pay out bigger salaries and dividends.

Rather takes away any incentive to learn then ....

Of course we pay for it. Banks need to increase fees etc to cover the cost. They do not take the hit, their customers do.

On the other hand there's a traditional saying:

'You can't cheat an honest man.'

Often, people who are victims can be victim of their own greed or dishonesty because they're being offered something at knock down price or that bends the rules.

With romance scams it's heartbreaking if the person isn't too sharp or is badly affected by loneliness and they're desperate for love. My mother was very vulnerable due to mental illness and she would get herself into awful entanglements with either predatory men or other very unwell men. Luckily she never actually got scammed although one nearly took her home over! So I do have empathy.

Just making the point that you seem devoid of empathy. You'd have to view the link I posted to see what some think that might make you. Not saying you are as I don't know you, but the idea that a £92m payout by all the UK banks might have a knock-on effect on savings interest or mortgage rates is laughable.

I wonder how people who say you are not being unreasonable view, say, claims through credit cards for compensation when they don't receive what they ordered? In that situation do you just say "No, I won't claim, because it's a risk I chose to take in ordering from this iffy company, and if I claim the banks will put their charges up"? Somehow I doubt it.

Yes but that's just a saying with no bearing on reality....surely you absolutely can cheat an honest man (or woman) - I'm sure it's been proven many times.

Yes but what difference does that make? It's an arbitrary distinction. The outcome is the exact same. If you really care about vulnerable people, why do you only care about those who lose money from illegal scams and not legal scams? What is the ACTUAL difference? There isn;t any.

You either care about vulnerable people losing money, or you don't. You can't care about one arbitrary grouping and not another.

I've heard tell that banks and credit cards clear off debts of people who are psychotic / manic.

Also, most people can get large debts written off without having to repay them, one way or another. And you don't see people going to prison for deliberately running up huge debts and loans (in their own name).

A wise friend of mine once told me that this is a deliberate policy of the banks to never appear to act punitively in order to maintain the trust and custom of the general public.

You see I once saw an interview with an ex policeman who managed to lose his life savings to a scammer. And because he was a DCI it was a pretty penny.

Now I am not saying that if I was in charge I might have wanted all his cases reviewed. That's for others to say.

It's a strange world we live in where people start turning on others who have the misfortune to have something bad happen to them. And why? Because we feel that they are responsible for taking money away from us.

Funny - some are much more prepared to compensate people who are scammed than people who are mugged.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but today's You and Yours on R4 had a long section about sophisticated scams, and one in which the bank took every precaution to warn the customer about going ahead, to the point where they made her upload a selfie with a printed signed letter saying she was sending her (life) savings for investment in crypto-currency. The bank has refused to refund a penny of the £85k she/they lost. We'll probably see more of this. But the message is: not all frauds and scams are automatically refunded and increasingly less likely to be refunded.