After giving his card details to a fraudster posing as his telecoms provider, Terry called his bank to cancel his card. Soon after he received a second fraudulent call, this time persuading him he needed to transfer his money to a ‘safe’ bank account.
What happened
Terry received a call from his telecoms provider to let him know he was due a refund. He gave over his card details so he could receive the payment. After the call ended he felt uneasy about how much information he’d given to the telecoms provider and on reflection wasn’t sure if the call had been genuine. He called the bank and explained what happened. The bank member of staff offered to cancel his card if he felt uneasy. In the call Terry asked several times whether his account was safe and whether anyone could do anything else with the information he’d given away. The bank member of staff reassured him several times that they couldn’t and his account was safe.
Shortly after the genuine call with the bank Terry received a call from someone pretending to be from his bank. The fraudsters had been able to make the bank’s telephone number display on Terry’s caller ID display. They also had various details about Terry and his account which convinced him he was speaking with his genuine bank. They explained his account was under threat and he needed to move his money to a safe account. He then made an online transfer for £2.5k (which was all of the money in his account) to an account with the details he’s been given by the fraudsters. A few hours after that Terry felt uneasy and called the bank back and was told he’d been scammed. The bank said it wasn’t responsible here as Terry had knowingly sent the money from his account although they appreciated he didn’t know it was going to fraudsters.
How we helped
We listened to the call Terry had with the bank when they cancelled his card. We felt the bank had missed a vital opportunity to have an appropriate conversation and warn Terry about the different types of scams and how fraudsters can use information they’ve ‘phished’ from customers to convince them they’re speaking to their bank when in fact they aren’t. The scam call happened shortly after he’d spoken to the bank where he asked several times if his account was safe.
Putting things right
We felt that the bank should’ve given Terry some clear warnings about scams and if it had we were confident this would have prevented the scam when Terry was called shortly after by fraudsters. We recommended and the bank agreed to refund all the money Terry lost in this scam.