Are You The Victim Of A Bank Transfer Scam?

If you have been tricked into sending money to someone by bank transfer, it could mean you are a victim of a scam and could get compensation for your losses.

REQUEST A FREE CALL BACK

As Seen In:

Ms. L was the victim of a bank transfer scam.

We were able to recover £18,129 for her.

Mr. C was the victim of a bank transfer scam.

We were able to recover £33,784 for him.

Mr. M was the victim of a work from home scam

We were able to recover £1,126 for him.

Bank Transfer (Authorised Push Payment) Fraud & Scams

Authorised push payment scams are more commonly known as bank transfer scams. This is when a criminal tricks the victim into sending money directly from their account, via bank transfer, to an account the criminal controls. Once the payment lands in the criminal’s account it is usually impossible to reverse.

Over £1.3bn was lost to fraud in 2021

There are many different scams that use this method of payment, including but not limited to the following:

Impersonation Scams – This is when the scammer pretends to be a person or organisation that you can trust. These include your bank, HMRC or even the police.
Investment Scams – This involves the criminal tricking you into investing in their “opportunity”, they will pretend to part of an investment service provider, fund manager or a Financial Advisor, in order to trick you into transferring money to their account. These frauds can be elaborate and even involve online systems that show you are making money on your investment, only for the money, site and advisor to disappear as soon you stop putting money in or want to make a withdrawal.
Romance Scams – These scams are particularly cruel as they prey on people that are looking to form serious relationships. The scammer will convince the victim to send money and/or personal information so they can steal their identity.
Job Scams – This is probably the most common scam operating at the moment. This scam involves the scammer contacting the victim usually via WhatsApp offering them a part time job working from home. The job is usually either rating apps, products or travel reviews done through their elaborate websites. They are usually impersonating a well known company, they tell you that you will be paid a weekly wage plus commission for each thing you review/rate. They typically require you to do approx 40 reviews/ratings per day to earn money. However during the process your account balance will fall into a negative amount due to a “bonus” review or high value product, they will then require you to pay money to them, usually through crypto or a bank wire, to bring your account back to a positive amount so you can continue working. They will tell you that you will get back all the money you have put in plus your salary and commission. However, your account will continue to fall into negative and require larger and larger amounts to bring it back into the positive, this will happen until you can no longer afford to send them money. At this point they will threaten legal action to try and get you to send more money, but ultimately the website will disappear and the people you had contact with will vanish.

Authorised Push Payment Scam Code

If your bank is signed up to the voluntary Authorised Push Payment Scam Code which launched ion 28 May 2019 it has to take a number of steps to their customers and reimburse customers who aren’t to blame. The code only applies to transfers between UK accounts. Overseas accounts are not covered.

If a bank is signed up to the code, as well as reimbursing bank transfer scam victims, it must also have committed to take steps to protect customers, which include;

Educating customers about Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams
Identifying higher risk payments and customers who are vulnerable and so have a higher risk of becoming a victim
Providing effective warnings to customers if the bank identifies an APP scam risk – these could be messages when you go to make a payment or set up a new payee
Talking to customers about payments and even delaying or stopping payments where there are scam concerns
Acting quickly when a scam is reported to it
Taking steps to stop fraudsters opening bank accounts

Banks signed up to the code:

Bank of Scotland PLC
Barclays
Cahoot
Cater Allen Limited
Co-op Bank
First Direct
Halifax
HSBC
Intelligent Finance
Lloyds Bank
M&S Bank
Metro Bank
Nationwide Building Society
NatWest
Royal Bank of Scotland PLC
Santander
Starling Bank
Ulster Bank
Virgin Money

Your responsibilities under the code

In order to uphold your side of the code, you’re expected to:

Pay attention to warnings given to you by your bank – these might include instructions or messages when you set up, change or make a payment.
Have a reasonable basis for believing that:
- the person you paid was the person you were expecting to pay
- the payment is for genuine goods or services
- the person or business you are paying is legitimate

Take Care – Once you realise you have been scammed, you might think you weren’t careful enough, but this should not put you off making a complaint to your bank. What matters is what you did and thought at the time, not afterwards.

If you have lost money through a bank transfer scam,

we can help you file a claim against your bank.

Start your claim