'My father was devastated': Family fights to recover thousands stolen in email scam | Fraud

CCriminals who targeted Françoise Schorosch's father knew how to lull the older man into a false sense of security. “The sender of the email was someone posing as me and asking for money,” she says.

By imitating how his daughter opens and transcribes emails in German, but otherwise writes mostly in English, the fraudsters tricked him into believing that he was helping her with money to buy her first property. He is one of many thousands of people every year tricked into transferring money into bank accounts managed by criminals.

These scams are known as authorized push payment (APP) scams, and the increasing scale of the problem has led to changes to the rules that come into effect today. The mandatory fraud reimbursement system introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) includes the following changes:

• Affected individuals can expect a refund within five business days of submitting their claim.

• The maximum compensation is £85,000. This amount was reduced from £415,000 through lobbying from the payments industry.

• There is an optional £100 excess that companies can apply to a claim – although some banks, such as. B. TSB, have already agreed to waive it. And the PSR says this deductible cannot be applied to “vulnerable” consumers.

• A limitation period of 13 months applies.

• Once a bank or payment company has issued a refund to the customer, the financial institution can demand half of the money back from the bank through which the criminal received it.

The type of scam targeting the Schorosh family is called a “Hello Dad” or “Hello Mom” scam.

Schorosch is fighting to get almost £6,000 back to her father after he was tricked into transferring cash into a fake Nationwide account.

“I have had discussions about working with lawyers, appraisers and real estate agents,” she says. “I kept him updated on all the finances and sought his advice as this was my first purchase. I suspect someone managed to access our email exchanges and then contacted him directly.”

The fraudster, who subtly changed Françoise's email address from gmail.com to email.com, asked her father to transfer €7,000 to a Nationwide account. It wasn't until he called her almost a week later, wondering why she hadn't thanked him for the money, that they realized something was wrong.

The family has filed police reports in both countries and has asked for help in getting his money back from both Nationwide and Deutsche Bank, from where he sent the money.

Nationwide says it sympathizes with the family. “Due to our confidentiality obligations, we cannot share details of our customer's account, but we can confirm that appropriate steps have been taken to investigate and respond to the matters raised with us. “As the payment was sent from an account at Deutsche Bank, you will need to contact them to help recover the money. To date we have not received any contact from Deutsche Bank in connection with this payment.”

Complicating the case is the fact that the Conditional Reimbursement Model (CRM), a voluntary agreement by some banks to reimburse victims, only applied to domestic payments and not to transactions made through Swift, the money transfer system used by her father. The new rules replace the CRM and apply to all payment service providers – but do not apply to Swift.

Nationwide adds: “If we receive a notification of fraud involving a payment from abroad, we would still attempt to use industry best practices to investigate and repatriate any remaining funds.”

The observer asked Deutsche Bank to do this – it stated that it was not allowed to pass on information due to German banking secrecy.

Schorosch says her father was “devastated” by the incident. “He believed strongly that his daughter was asking him for financial support and wanted to help him. “He is now retired and living on his pension… I know he has had several sleepless nights about this.”

The latest figures from UK Finance, the banking industry body, show that almost £460 million was lost to APP fraud last year. While the PSR says the new rules will result in “the vast majority” of money lost through these frauds being refunded to victims, there are cases where the customer will not receive a refund. This would be the case if they had participated in the fraud or had been “grossly negligent”.

The PSR states: “Gross negligence is a high bar and this exception does not apply to vulnerable consumers.”

Law firm Farrer & Co says a client must show “a very significant degree of negligence” to be considered grossly negligent.

However, some criticized the new rules for not going far enough. Consumer group Which one? says the lower threshold of £85,000 could make banks more reluctant to invest in ways to protect consumers. “Victims can continue to refer their case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, where the maximum reimbursement amount is £430,000,” it added.

“Victims of high-value fraud, such as investment fraud and home transfer fraud, could face a lengthy battle for justice for consumers.

“This comes despite scams becoming increasingly sophisticated – a phenomenon that is likely to increase due to the increase in fraudsters exploiting artificial intelligence, adding to the stress and emotional harm experienced by many.”

Fraud prevention service Cifas welcomes the new rules but says greater cooperation is needed between the PSR, law enforcement, the government and other bodies dealing with the issue.

In a related development that will theoretically help protect people from APP scams, bank payments may be delayed for a further three days if lenders suspect consumers are being defrauded.

Under new powers granted by the Treasury to major banks, payments suspected of being fraudulent may be delayed and investigated.

The Treasury said the new rules were expected to come into force at the end of this month, although banks will need to update their terms and conditions, which could impact implementation.

The government hopes this will be another way to tackle the ever-increasing levels of fraud, which is now the most common crime in England and Wales.

Last week, Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced it would expand an information-sharing system with banks to prevent fraud.

The “mutual exchange of fraud information” program, which aims to “stop fraudsters and protect users”, has worked with NatWest and Metro Bank, but is now expected to bring more banks on board.