The Lemon Fool

While we were away on holiday, my daughter, who lives at home, was convinced by a phone call to withdraw £9,750 cash from nationwide and give it to a caller to the house.
At nationwide, she needed only her passbook and to know her address, D.O.B. and age next birthday.
The cash withdrawal was not typical for her account.

We have exhausted nationwide’s complaint procedure with them insisting that they acted properly and that there was no fraud since it was her account. We contend that they should have asked for more proof of her identity on the one hand and should have asked questions about the unusual behaviour on the other hand and basicaly failed to demontrate a duty of care to their customer. We suspect that the amount was chosen by the fraudster so as to be just under a limit where further checks would be made although nationwide refuse to reveal any details of their procedures in this respect.

We are now gathering together evidence for the complaint to go forward to the financial ombudsman.

Comments? Candid or otherwise?

uspaul666 wrote:While we were away on holiday, my daughter, who lives at home, was convinced by a phone call to withdraw £9,750 cash from nationwide and give it to a caller to the house.
At nationwide, she needed only her passbook and to know her address, D.O.B. and age next birthday.
The cash withdrawal was not typical for her account.

We have exhausted nationwide’s complaint procedure with them insisting that they acted properly and that there was no fraud since it was her account. We contend that they should have asked for more proof of her identity on the one hand and should have asked questions about the unusual behaviour on the other hand and basicaly failed to demontrate a duty of care to their customer. We suspect that the amount was chosen by the fraudster so as to be just under a limit where further checks would be made although nationwide refuse to reveal any details of their procedures in this respect.

We are now gathering together evidence for the complaint to go forward to the financial ombudsman.

Comments? Candid or otherwise?

Different banks must have different procedures. I transfered £10k online from a Halifax account last Sat to move it into another banks account and they refused to transfer it until I had phoned the fraud office and answer a lot of questions, one of which was, was I transfering as a result of a telephone call.

Part of me was a little irritated that I had to go through this grilling but I realised why they did it so I put up with it.

convinced by a phone call to withdraw £9,750 cash from nationwide and give it to a caller to the house.

Presumably it was pretty convincing to be required to hand it over to a stranger?

brightncheerful wrote:

convinced by a phone call to withdraw £9,750 cash from nationwide and give it to a caller to the house.

Presumably it was pretty convincing to be required to hand it over to a stranger?

She was made to feel like she was part of something exciting and important. She’s naive and impressionable and the caller was a skilled expert.

uspaul666 wrote:

brightncheerful wrote:

convinced by a phone call to withdraw £9,750 cash from nationwide and give it to a caller to the house.

Presumably it was pretty convincing to be required to hand it over to a stranger?

She was made to feel like she was part of something exciting and important. She’s naive and impressionable and the caller was a skilled expert.

Have you reported to the Police?

Does your street have properties with security cameras?

uspaul666 wrote:She was made to feel like she was part of something exciting and important. She’s naive and impressionable and the caller was a skilled expert.

Whilst I feel very sorry for her the law presumes that anyone over the age of 18 is capable of making rational decisions. Whilst this presumption may often be entirely unjustified there's no general legal proposition that people must be protected from their own lack of common sense unless they are deemed not to have mental capacity.

I can't see that Nationwide - or any other financial institution - can reasonably be held responsible for failing to stop this happening. She's clearly not a child, and I don't believe it's reasonable to expect banks and other such institutions to have to consider whether their customers are acting wisely. It's their money and they can do what they want with it.

Of course there may be circumstances that put a bank on notice - for example if an elderly person is accompanied to the counter by a couple of rough looking thugs - but if a young adult asks for a cash withdrawal of a few thousand quid there's nothing inherently suspicious about it. Neither would the lack of any such withdraw previously be inherently suspicious - after all, she may well have been saving up to buy something and she'd just reached her target.

To put the boot on the other foot imagine the furore if she'd had an opportunity to buy a car at an absolute bargain price provided it was paid for in cash immediately - not an uncommon scenario - and Nationwide had refused to allow her to withdraw the cash on the basis that the seller might be a scammer.

I'm afraid I can't see you getting anywhere with your complaint, and for once, though I fully appreciate the distress your daughter has suffered, I'm afraid I'm on the side of Nationwide.

supremetwo wrote:

uspaul666 wrote:

brightncheerful wrote:
Presumably it was pretty convincing to be required to hand it over to a stranger?

She was made to feel like she was part of something exciting and important. She’s naive and impressionable and the caller was a skilled expert.

Have you reported to the Police?

Does your street have properties with security cameras?

Yes and No.

This scam has been the subject of several 'consumer beware' programs.

The caller purports to be from the police investigating fraud from within the targets bank and asks for their help. They then ask their target to ring a number to confirm they are the police, when actioned they have kept a line open, so the info is confirmed.

Then they are told to withdraw the money, take it home, put in an envelope and someone will collect it.

Someone with fake id duly calls and the cash is collected.

All the ones I watched were elderly and, inherently, believed in the police so I was surprised to see such a young person being targeted.

A really despicable crime and one not easily or successfully investigated, solved and prosecuted.

Its hard to criticise Nationwide's ID checks, as it was the right person withdrawing from the right account. I suppose they could have asked for passport, but that would not have changed the outcome of the fraud.

Certainly I'd not want to give reasons to a bank why I wanted to do a transaction. When Nationwide used to ask, as I think part of a being friendly policy, I felt it was an intrusion in my private affairs.

I expect banks can have a vulnerability flag put on an account, that would trigger further questioning, but I'd not want it on my ones.

Are you hoping Nationwide will compensate you for the loss, in which case it will make all other Nationwide customers poorer. I have a lot more more sympathy if you just wanted them to trigger warning bells in your daughter's head.

Consider it £10K's worth of top quality financial education, if should make her wary of 'too good to be true' stories and a lot more cautious about managing her money in future.

It would be nice to get a refund yes and I understand that the banks are to start contributing to a fund that will ensure no customer in future will lose money to “complex fraud”. I feel that Nationwide has failed my daughter to some degree in that she was not asked politely why she was doing this. In my online bank, on the new payments page, it has a message in red saying that the police and bank will never ask you to transfer money etc. I think if the amount was just a little greater or my daughter was 85 then they might have asked and it might have been different. Unfortunately, the places that this kind of fraud are warned about (daily mail, police briefings, stalls at fetes, community projects for retired people, etc) are not the places she frequents.
My daughter was coached by the scammer to say it was for a car, and when she got a follow up call, the scammer told her that nationwide should have questioned her on this and that they weren’t following their own procedures (!)
A lesson has definately been learned. I hope that by putting it here, it might be appreciated that it’s not always the stereotype old trusting granny that can be taken but also the naive young adult. We still intend to make a complaint to the financial ombudsman if only to achieve a greater awareness and to prevent it becoming more common.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this and for the contributions here.

uspaul666 wrote:It would be nice to get a refund yes and I understand that the banks are to start contributing to a fund that will ensure no customer in future will lose money to “complex fraud”.

I think I read that this fund is to cover cases where neither the bank nor the customer are at fault, and so might not be applicable in a case like your daughter's.
And of course the money that the banks will contribute to the fund will be our money.

--kiloran

uspaul666 wrote:While we were away on holiday, my daughter, who lives at home, was convinced by a phone call to withdraw £9,750 cash from nationwide and give it to a caller to the house.
At nationwide, she needed only her passbook and to know her address, D.O.B. and age next birthday.
The cash withdrawal was not typical for her account.

We have exhausted nationwide’s complaint procedure with them insisting that they acted properly and that there was no fraud since it was her account. We contend that they should have asked for more proof of her identity on the one hand and should have asked questions about the unusual behaviour on the other hand and basicaly failed to demontrate a duty of care to their customer. We suspect that the amount was chosen by the fraudster so as to be just under a limit where further checks would be made although nationwide refuse to reveal any details of their procedures in this respect.

We are now gathering together evidence for the complaint to go forward to the financial ombudsman.

Comments? Candid or otherwise?

I'm sorry that this has happened to you & your daughter.

I've been at the bank (branch or on the phone or onlin) and sometimes I get a question from the bank if I pay in a large cheque or if I make a large transfer. I stomach the question becuase I know it's in a good cause (and in some cases, I believe the cashiers, who at my local branch are lovely, can be liable if they are part of some fraud I have committed). However, I'd be miffed if I was given a hard time accessing my money.

If you think there is a fraud, who do you think carried out the fraud? Who do you think will pay the £9750 back to your daughter? Other customers and/or the Nationwide's members (as it's a mutual)??
Nationwide seem to have beheaved correctly, and it seems that they're not the ones that should be paying back the £9750 as they don't appear to have done anything wrong (unless you say otherwise).

Your daughter is an adult. Perhaps you should have educated her better. Perhaps is was a salutary lesson? Sorry: tough love. Support your daughter, but don't take it out on the Nationwide. Why should "someone else" resolve this issue? Why not accept responsibility yourself? It sounds more like an issue for the police, not the Nationwide.

Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear.

I feel that Nationwide has failed my daughter to some degree in that she was not asked politely why she was doing this.

If my 22 year old daughter withdrew £9,750 and handed it over to a complete stranger without question or even bothering to consult with me (no matter where I was in the world), I would feel that perhaps, in some small way, I had failed my daughter by failing to educate her adequately.

Maybe, just for a moment, stop looking for others to blame and look inwardly.

I feel that Nationwide has failed my daughter to some degree in that she was not asked politely why she was doing this.

...but even if Nationwide had enquired about the reason for the unusual, large cash withdrawal, your daughter had been primed to lie and say it was for a car purchase. Or would you have expected Nationwide to press further and insist on seeing the details of the car being purchased ?

Words fail me.

orchard101 wrote:This scam has been the subject of several 'consumer beware' programs.

The caller purports to be from the police investigating fraud from within the targets bank and asks for their help. They then ask their target to ring a number to confirm they are the police, when actioned they have kept a line open, so the info is confirmed.

Apparently, the victim thought she was part of 'something exciting and important'. This scam (help police prevent fraud) doesn't sound as if it would be particularly exciting or important to a 22 year old female.

uspaul666 wrote:Comments? Candid or otherwise?

Whilst it won't be of much help to you, are you able to provide any further detail of how the scam worked? Was it the one described earlier in this thread or something else? Did the fraudster know that your daughter would have instant access to just under £10K in cash, or was it just a (un)lucky shot in the dark?

chas49 wrote:Did the fraudster know that your daughter would have instant access to just under £10K in cash, or was it just a (un)lucky shot in the dark?

I wondered about the amount as well. Perhaps banks have to conduct extra checks if the amount requested is over £10K in cash?

I have to say that I get annoyed when Banks ask me what I want the cash for, and of course I just make something up if I feel like it. But I'd also be annoyed if the Bank refused to release my own cash to me in any circumstance other than someone holding a gun to my head.

I cannot see what the Bank did wrong here and would be shocked if they were held liable in any way. After all, what is to stop me taking out a sum like this, falsely claiming it was a scam and then getting refunded?

Finally it seems to me that the guy who showed up at the house was taking a big risk. Anyone who realised this was a scam might have the police waiting for him.

Lootman wrote:

chas49 wrote:Did the fraudster know that your daughter would have instant access to just under £10K in cash, or was it just a (un)lucky shot in the dark?

I wondered about the amount as well. Perhaps banks have to conduct extra checks if the amount requested is over £10K in cash?

That's why the OP said:

We suspect that the amount was chosen by the fraudster so as to be just under a limit where further checks would be made although nationwide refuse to reveal any details of their procedures in this respect.

If a person goes along to to a bank in order to withdraw money from their own account and after being able to answer questions relating to their DOB and age next birthday how can any possible blame be apportioned to Nationwide? How could they not give the person their own money?