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?

Collusion is exactly what I thought of when I saw the OP. If there’s a way to make money people will use it. Just look at the massive fraud from the Covid payments scheme.
A few months of texting a contact overseas and building a story and split the profits. Easy money!

What legal scams? Scams in all their guises are illegal. I’m not sure why addictions are being compared to victims of crime tbh.

You're missing the point. In many cases, something bad didn't randomly happen to them. They actively engaged in it.

the person who gives there bank details to someone on an email because they are told they've won a huge lottery in spain or something, which they know they didn't enter, is trying to gain money for nothing. They're a scammer same as the scammers scamming them!

The granny giving some young waiter in Morocco all her money because she slept with him on holiday is trying to exploit him as much as he's trying to exploit her.

Stop pretending everyone was just going about their business and scammers took all their money. In most cases, they gave it away. Yes, there is manipulation and there is vulnerability, but its inane to suggest people aren't helping to cause their own misfortune.

No they aren't, you seem pretty naive.

We trust them with our money, so yes. And they have obligations to their customers to repay that trust.

And you seem to be rather ill mannered.

Natwest distributed £1bn in dividends last year on a profit of over £12bn . Figure for Barclays was £1.02bn on a profit of £5bn. HSBC made a profit of over £16bn.

This is just 3 banks. Collective profit is £33,000,000,000. That's 33 thousand million pounds.

Yet some on this thread think that all of the banks (not just these three) having to stump up for £92m of fraud this year is too much to ask, and that we all pay for it. Pathetic.

It’s simply not true that you are guaranteed your money back if you’ve been scammed.

Certainly a fraud department will investigate, but if you haven’t done due diligence, if you haven’t heeded the warnings regarding sending money to scammers then the banks aren’t obliged to give you back your money.

I know someone who was scammed out of £60000 by a romance scammer. She didn’t get a penny back. The banks had in some instances even blocked payments, and she had spoken to them to say that this was someone she knew personally and the payment was legit.

There are some scams that I can see would be easy to fall for. The one where you’re messaged to say you need to rearrange delivery of a package. If you’re expecting a package then I can see how you might fall for that, given it’s only a few quid, or so you think.

But these romance scams are public knowledge by now. And they’re not even plausible. Stuck on an oil rig/being held hostage/being threatened and the person being scammed has never even met them.

There absolutely needs to be a level of personal responsibility here.

As for the Canadian lottery and the Nigerian prince scams, I have no sympathy for anyone who falls for them, because the reality is that their motivation here is greed.

If you haven’t bought a ticket for the Canadian lottery then you know you can’t have won.

And anyone stupid enough to fall for an email asking you to launder money through your bank account so you’ll receive millions of pounds has no-one to blame but themselves.

I think getting the money compensated will encourage more scams. The scammers get the money, the scamned get their money back and its just the banks to lose out. People will be even more careless.

I got fooled by one of those. Thankfully, PayPal reversed the transaction.

Anyone can put up a convincing website using off-the-shelf storefront software. Perhaps the answer will be that we all revert to shopping in physical stores?

@Raisinganiguana yes of course I read your post. How is it not a financial scam? She lost so much money. It is a type of financial scam, just in the form of a supposed romance The woman was totally silly in this case I agree. I feel sorry that someone was so lonely that they wanted to believe it was true.

People can collude to fake other kinds of crimes, like burglary. We don't assume that burglary victims are lying though.

someone was so lonely that they wanted to believe it was true.

This is itself a form of vulnerability.

But this is the point. When my DM was in the early stages of dementia and the bank was open I could go in with her. The cashier knew her, (and me), as she went in every week or so for her cash and to pay in a cheque. All the branches in our High St are closed except one. On line it's really difficult, or over the phone with someone in Asia, there's a disconnection, a disassociation, a pressure to do things quickly.
My DS has difficulties - not enough to have no access to his money but the bank does not allow me to keep an eye on him at all. He was scammed for a huge amount of money - and there was no way I had any idea until he came to me suicidal and unable to pay his train fare as his card was declined.

I do think the banks should be far more proactive in “screening” potential scam payments and tracking/tracing the scammers - they also should be willing to stop pending payments when the account holder twigs something is dodgy and phones them straightaway. With some of the scams especially for smaller sums it can be understandable someone has been caught out and made a quick BACS payment before realising their mistake. However, the romance scams (even with long term grooming if the victim) are harder to sympathise with. I do find it hard to believe a rational adult (even a gullible one) can genuinely believe some hottie half their age is in love with them - oh, and they have never met in real life! Even if they do believe this as soon as money is mentioned they should be on instant alert. Its not as if these folk are looking for a couple of hundred quid, its tens of thousands being handed over, and the account holder should carry some responsibility for the management /loss of their money. What I see more than anything else in my job is family members syphoning off hundreds and thousands from vulnerable elderly relatives. This is depressingly common, and scams far more money than 92 million per annum. The banks should be doing doing kind of welfare calls to the oldies to see if they understand what they are paying for/to other relatives bills and lifestyles. If its clear they don’t have a scooby should be getting SWD to do a welfare assessment to help protect these folk and GDPR be damned. But thats another thread….

Don't mistake compulsion for choice. Bank accounts are an essential part of modern life. We have to use them yes, But trust them? Not on your nelly.

Trust, by definition, is to put someone into a position where they could harm you and you hope that they won't. We have no choice but to trust banks, regardless of whether we feel confident in them.

As a thought perhaps we should all have scam insurance?

Not sure how that would work in view of most insurance companies' T&Cs, @Raisinganiguana? Generally speaking, if something happens you couldn't have foreseen that's fine, but if it's your own fault you're on your own

Ages ago there was a poster whose young DS had just run up an online game debt on her card for the THIRD time, only unlike the first two the bank were refusing compo and she was going berserk because they'd dared to suggest she should have taken more care

A bit different to an outright scam of course, bt the overall point seems to be that some just don't want to accept responsibility

Speak for yourself, but I still don't trust banks.

To be fair they don't trust us either.

the woman was totally silly in this case I agree. I feel sorry that someone was so lonely that they wanted to believe it was true

yes. It’s very sad for her. But do you think others are responsible for her fantasy?

I don’t know the ins and outs of when banks have to pay it back but the expert on Steph’s Packed lunch was very clear that they did. He even said ‘don’t let them weasel out it.’

There are extremely sophisticated scams out there - tons of it where people masquerade as legitimate organisations, skins that are put over bank apps so that someone things they are being asked to legitimately do something, as well as all the usual really convincing HMRC and benefits ones. Have you seen the latest MSE warning that there is a letter being sent out to people at the moment claiming you can claim back tax.... it's actually legitimate but people are so wary of scams now that they think it's more fakery. Sure if you fall for something obvious you might think 'well I obviously wouldn't fall for that' but scams are increasingly complex. I work in a huge organisation with many educated and on the ball people but we have to continuously warn against all sorts of scams because they're NOT obvious and they don't target the elderly and vulnerable- they target everyone indiscriminately.

Well it does if you’re worried about the bank using our money which was your original gripe with them paying out to romance fraud victims.

@Bex5490 not really, it doesn’t effect the principle of what I’m asking. Which is, is it others’ responsibility to repay romance frauds. Insane bank bonuses are a totally different issue.

@Raisinganiguana - do you want a situation instead where banks are allowed to insist on seeing your private medical information to check whether you might be on the road to a dementia or poor mental health diagnosis; or are allowed to tell you that they will not compensate you in your case because they think you are actually just stupid and only a stupid person would ever behave like you?…

Well you might not pay for it if you don't pay bank charges and interest, but if you do then you will.

The banks will put up their charges and mortgage rates to cover their losses.