Son’s just been scammed!

[papamouse]

Originally Posted by catsandtrees

I may be being cynical but I am not trusting this 'plumber'.

Has your son got any references from people who have had work done by him before?

Personally I wouldn't let him step foot in my house until I have made enquiries into him.

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I don't think he is dishonest, but I think he is responsible for the security of his communications.

If he knew his email was hacked by the prior complaint, what did he do to prevent anyone else (ie op's son) being duped too.

But ultimately in business having a customer happy with the outcome is the objective and in this case both parties seem ok with the outcome, so who are we to judge...

Police have also investigated the circumstances and seems the plumber is innocent of any involvement in the scam.

[cheekydeeky]

Unfortunately this happens all too often. I do quite a bit of scam awareness at work and the scammers are getting smarter by the day (sure they could make good money honestly if they wanted to as they’re certainly not daft).

I wouldn’t normally quote the sun but it’s a pretty accurate indication of what can happen.

thesun/living/2699...ay-to-stop-it/

Good on the builder for doing the job for 50%. He sounds like someone who cares...

[RickT]

If you've been caught out by a complex and convincing scam which has resulted in you transferring your money into another bank account than you should contact your bank immediately.

The bank can try and recover the funds once they are notified.

You could also have grounds to complain if somehow the bank has contributed to the fraud or if they've failed to try and recover the funds properly.

If your bank refuse to offer you a refund, or only offers a partial refund, you have a couple of options:

Make an official complaint with the bank - but be aware that banks have up to eight weeks to deal with an official complaint.
Inform the bank that you will escalate your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

You should also contact the police, a crime number will usually help your claim.

[Bobbins]

It's a bit odd how the bank and police fobbed OP's son off. The lady who sent £300K to the wrong account after her solicitors email was hacked got it back from the bank.

[axxxl]

We had an incident last year at work when myself and the other girl in accounts received an email from our director. At least it seemed like it came from him. Had his name, email address and everything. The email asked us to make a payment of around £20k and send him the confirmation when it was done.

The email was worded completely differently to how he would normally write, so we decided to play them. As the replies came back the masked parts of the email started to break down (email address became something entirely different, name changed eventually etc).

IT claimed there was nothing they could do to prevent it. Same thing happened again a couple of months ago! Thankfully both of us are pretty clued up but it would have been incredibly convincing to anyone else in the office.

[papamouse]

assume everything is fake.

if I want to go to facebook, I open my browser and type in facebook, I don't click a link in an email either from or looking like its from facebook.

Same with paypal, any bank, or anything involving me sending them money or logging in anywhere.

same with offers and phone calls and everything.

If I want it, I source it, I don't agree on a call or from an email text or anything.

[Macca04]

Originally Posted by RickT

If you've been caught out by a complex and convincing scam which has resulted in you transferring your money into another bank account than you should contact your bank immediately.

The bank can try and recover the funds once they are notified.

You could also have grounds to complain if somehow the bank has contributed to the fraud or if they've failed to try and recover the funds properly.

If your bank refuse to offer you a refund, or only offers a partial refund, you have a couple of options:

Make an official complaint with the bank - but be aware that banks have up to eight weeks to deal with an official complaint.
Inform the bank that you will escalate your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

You should also contact the police, a crime number will usually help your claim.

See more...

He has a crime number and although the bank have fobbed him off he is certainly not going to let it go and will be following all avenues to recover the money. Thanks for the tip regarding the Financial Ombudsman.

[Ming]

With the new GDPR regulations (data protection) coming into effect in May I would guess most companies are going to have to use encrypted emails to protect client data. The fines for not doing so are huge so they need to make sure all client data is protected. Hopefully this will help stops this sort of scam although I am sure the scammers will find new ways of Stealing people’s money.

[Bee happy]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbell 1

That’s a bit harsh. Not unreasonable for a tradesman to ask for money towards materials.
What I do is send a £1and ask for confirmation it’s been received before sending any more.

OP glad your son got is sorted and sure he would use/recommend the plumber again so hopefully it will work out.

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We have just had a lot of work done on house,our builder advised to send him a £1 first to make sure it was going to right account. We did this with all the tradesmen then.

Glad your son didn't have to fork out for it again.

[tspill]

Originally Posted by Bee happy

We have just had a lot of work done on house,our builder advised to send him a £1 first to make sure it was going to right account. We did this with all the tradesmen then.

Glad your son didn't have to fork out for it again.

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Very good advice - I have done this with every new payment I have ever set up since internet banking started - not because of scamming, but to make sure I get the right account.