Wife's been scammed good and proper

[Shewie]

Thanks everyone for the concern and advice so far

Apparently Carol's had a rather unsuccessful morning with Lloyds dispute department who were less than helpful, she's also been to her local branch and cleared out the account to try and avoid any further scam payments, they wouldn't however let her completely close it as it's now in dispute. Therefore there's a chance she'll get stung again on the 21st and she's still doubtful that she'll ever get any of it back.

I've given her the NFIB link (thanks Tobes) so we'll see what they have to say, surely if it's as common as the forums make out then hopefully they'll be able to help.

 

[Manacles]

Rich, remember that the Banking Ombudsman is there to help if Lloyd's won't give your wife the required level of support. I've had to resort to using the Ombudsman Bureau in the past and although they do take their time they certainly get good results.

Now you have notified them Lloyds cannot any further funds to the scammers without being liable themselves for any loss. This should ensure no further scam attacks. Please also notify the local Police as they will record it and give you advice.

Good luck

 

[sapper1]

Remember ,when you complain to the ombudsman they charge the bank £500 regardless of the complaint,dispute or outcome .It will cost them £500 no matter what.It may be worth reminding them of this.

 

[Shewie]

Carol's rung the NFIB but they weren't interested, they said her bank will contact them if necessary

Trading Standards have given her a ref number but they told her to contact their US equivalent, they won't log a complaint either because she doesn't have an address for the company.

Talk about getting passed from pilar to post

I get the feeling this isn't going to be easy to resolve

 

[sapper1]

Here you go Shewie,this is the e-mail for the CEO of Lloyds banking group.

antonio.osorio@lloydsbanking.com

It may help

 

[Melonfish]

Here you go Shewie,this is the e-mail for the CEO of Lloyds banking group.

antonio.osorio@lloydsbanking.com

It may help

technically that'll just go to a CEO management team, the ceo won't see it. BUT it should still be looked at by their HLC guys (higher level complaints)

 

[Chambers]

Still will be worth an E-mail to him. After months and months of troubles with BT i contacted the CEO, the next day his secretary was on the phone and resolved the issue and appologised endlessly

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

 

[trekkingnut]

i bought something online about 5 years ago and in the small print somewhere, in invisible ink, it apparently said i was going to pay £10 a month to them for some obscure reason. It went unnoticed for a few months. Finally saw it on the credit card statement, rung up visa, they cancelled the payments and refunded me all of the money this company had taken so far.... dont fret! i hope theres a happy ending!

 

[tobes01]

Just another bit of bait for Lloyds: make it clear that if they resolve this then your wife will require TWO credit cards, one for regular use, and one for online use only. That way it's easy to keep an eye on statements to see if anything odd pops up. Keep the limit on the online card very low indeed (eg £500) and that further limits the potential scope of any future fraud.

 

[Shewie]

Just another bit of bait for Lloyds: make it clear that if they resolve this then your wife will require TWO credit cards, one for regular use, and one for online use only. That way it's easy to keep an eye on statements to see if anything odd pops up. Keep the limit on the online card very low indeed (eg £500) and that further limits the potential scope of any future fraud.

She's going to try the ombudsman tomorrow so we'll see what they have to say about it.

Lloyds are now £6,000 worse off compared to what they were this morning after Carol left just £100 in the account. They wouldn't let her close it completely because of the dispute if the scammers attempt to take any more on Thursday (the due date as far as we can tell) then the bank will honour it, now putting Carol into debt and further charges in the process

What a mess

 

[mountainm]

She's going to try the ombudsman tomorrow so we'll see what they have to say about it.

Lloyds are now £6,000 worse off compared to what they were this morning after Carol left just £100 in the account. They wouldn't let her close it completely because of the dispute if the scammers attempt to take any more on Thursday (the due date as far as we can tell) then the bank will honour it, now putting Carol into debt and further charges in the process

What a mess

Can you buy something else with the remaining £100's on your card? Or have they frozen all transactions apart from the one you want them to freeze?

 

[789987]

cant you just cancel the card? treat it as if it was physically lost or stolen?

 

[Shewie]

Can you buy something else with the remaining £100's on your card? Or have they frozen all transactions apart from the one you want them to freeze?

All the transactions have been frozen but if the scammer still attempts to take any money then the bank will honour it, that's the stupid and annoying part of it. It would be acceptable to say goodbye to that first payment and put it down as a hard lesson learnt but it's the fact that the bank say there's nothing they can do to stop any more transactions. Hopefully the ombudsman can shed some light on this tomorrow.

cant you just cancel the card? treat it as if it was physically lost or stolen?

The card is cancelled mate but there's apparently something in the small print of the scammers policy (which we've never seen!) which allows them to keep taking money from the account, regardless of whether the card is valid or not.

It's a tough one as I'm tempted to tell Carol to just close the account completely and admit she'll never get the first £250+ back, that would mean ending the dispute though so there's no come back whatsoever.

 

[chris_irwin]

whilst this won't help the current situation, depending on what browser you are using, you should be able to disable popups, or download some kind of add on. Adblock plus if you're using firefox.

 

[sapper1]

The bank works for you, give them a specific instruction not to pay anything out of the account,after this if they do then they are in the wrong.You've explained the situation to them and they have all the facts,they know you are the victim of a scam and if they continue to make payments to this company then they are making themselves part of the scam.

 

[Toddy]

Sommat odd there. If Carole cancels a direct debit, presumably what this is in effect, in writing, the bank *has* to pay heed to it.

I suspect she needs to keep asking to speak, to whoever she manages to get hold of on the phone's, supervisor, and keep going.

Maybe contact the national radio and tv programmes? this is exactly the kind of thing they'll get their teeth into, *and* it might get Lloyds off their backsides to cancel the thing if they realise that negative publicity is blaming them for making a bad situation worse.

best of luck with it,
M

 

[Paul_B]

OUr bank (NAtwest / RBS switched from a maestro debit card to a VISA debit card. Apparently VISA debit cards have a little bit more protection in it. Still the right credit card has the higher protection. I use a debit card I must admit as I don't have a credit card.

Tough that BTW. Just goes to show you can't trust anything or anyone online. My defence is to trust noone. If I intend to buy anything online I only do so from a UK company that I can check does actually have a UK presence and address. I also find out about them from an appropriate forum. For example I will search on here for them or another outdoors forum. If I hear anything bad about them I don't buy from them. I feel I have to as I only have the debit card and can't afford to be scammed at all. It would just mess up my gear purchases if I did lose money!!

Anyway I have one main view on online shopping and that is to mistrust everyone. I only started buying online two years ago. I only buy from Alpkit, BPL-UK, a bushcraft place near Penrith (I know where they are based and have heard good things about them, think Lurch works there and posts occasionally on here), a camping food company set up by a long time poster on another site that has only ever had excellent reviews. Those are the only ones. I might add a few on to that but only after recommendations by people on sites I have had plenty of contact with. People who's opinions I have learnt to trust. There are a few on this foum like that.

 

[Shewie]

Sommat odd there. If Carole cancels a direct debit, presumably what this is in effect, in writing, the bank *has* to pay heed to it.

Apparently not as far as we can tell, it stated in these "unseen" T's&C's that there will be further charges of £128 monthly until the contract is cancelled. Carol swears she never saw any such information and I believe her. The daft thing is she never actually got any confirmation email or any written correspondence so how exactly is she supposed to be able to contact them and stop it ? The bank are having a hard time understanding this.
We found a Florida number on one of the forums last night which we managed to get through to, as soon as we confirmed our address and telephone number they hung up, again this is mentioned in all the forums too.

I've just filled out the Watchdog online form so we'll see if they're interested in helping ?

 

[lostplanet]

This absolutely stinks, I cannot believe LLoyds are not being more helpful. My misses banks with lloyds and after reading this
I'm going to get her to change banks. Disgusting!! I'm fuming here and it hasn't happended to me!! I am Also going to tell everyone I know about this too and suggest they stick the finger to lloyds as well.

The Banks these days are taking the **** and getting away with it, They work for us and as such should be responsible to act as we instruct as its our money they are only keeping safe.

If it ever becomes possible I would sue FaceBook and LLoyds as well for being so god damn stupid!! Utterly ridiculous beaureacratic Bull****, im never dealing with lloyds or there associates ever again.

hope it gets sorted Shewie.

 

[789987]

All the transactions have been frozen but if the scammer still attempts to take any money then the bank will honour it, that's the stupid and annoying part of it. It would be acceptable to say goodbye to that first payment and put it down as a hard lesson learnt but it's the fact that the bank say there's nothing they can do to stop any more transactions. Hopefully the ombudsman can shed some light on this tomorrow.



The card is cancelled mate but there's apparently something in the small print of the scammers policy (which we've never seen!) which allows them to keep taking money from the account, regardless of whether the card is valid or not.

It's a tough one as I'm tempted to tell Carol to just close the account completely and admit she'll never get the first £250+ back, that would mean ending the dispute though so there's no come back whatsoever.

yeah - i would take the 250 hit and then try and drum up some negative publicity in the hope they would resolve it in retrospect