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An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

reuters.com

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Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#31

Post by dan-robertson »

kasperni wrote: post #12

> The fraudsters had told her to shift her "at risk" cash to an account on a cryptocurrency platform that they emptied - while isolating her from family by stressing secrecy and coaching her on how to respond to sceptical bank officials. "They knew the name of my financial adviser, they were utterly convincing as FCA staff," she said. "And they told me I could not tell anyone about the investigation as it would damag…

I think it can be easy to read things like this and see them as obvious scams but the fraudsters only need to trick a few people as the payout is large, and they are strongly incentivised to come up with the most optimised flow for scamming people.

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#32

Post by loriverkutya »

robotmay wrote: post #29
IshKebab wrote: post #24

Ultimately you can't really stop people from falling for con men, but I do feel part of the blame lies with banks and other institutions for normalising out-of-the-blue phone calls. How would you know a call from the bank about fraudulent transactions was fake? They do that! I've even had legitimate calls from them where they refuse to pass my security questions because of data protection. Pure madness.

Yeah NatWest are majorly guilty of this. They used to phone me with a script that was like: NW: "Hello, am I speaking to ?" Me: "Who's asking?" NW: "I'm calling from the NatWest fraud team, we'd like to verify your transactions. First we need to ask some security questions: what is your account number?" Me: :| Online-only banks like Monzo/Starling are better at this aspect - they never seem to phone anyone, which at…

I had the same experience with them and when I told them that I'm not going to give them any information over the phone because I have no way to verify anything I was told is true so give me a phone number I can contact them to verify the transaction then I was told that I'm overly cautious and stupid phrased in a nice and British way. And the transaction they flagged was a £30 payment in a city restaurant. I'm no longer with them.

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#34

Post by Chris2048 »

simonh wrote: post #15
blfr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would brexit impact police interactions with other commonwealth countries. Or even global policing.

Because we lost access to many EU police databases and data sharing agreements. We negotiated continued access to some stuff, but there are still some significant gaps. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56529359

How are these databases used to police/punish the stereotypical Nigerian scammer?

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#35

Post by retube »

robotmay wrote: post #16

Ooh we're still the capital of something. Personally I think this comes down to ineffective education in many cases. Yes, some of these scams are getting quite impressively advanced, and they tend to target older people who are declining in cognitive ability, but so often the victims are absolutely unwilling to admit they were a bit stupid. It's always someone else's fault, like the bank, or the police, or Facebook,…

> Maybe our curious mix of laziness, stupidity, superiority complex, and greed combine to make us the perfect targets.

Such self-hatred only from a Labour voter I bet

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#36

Post by Chris2048 »

phreeza wrote: post #27
blfr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would brexit impact police interactions with other commonwealth countries. Or even global policing.

Commonwealth should be unaffected, but if the perpetrator is in the EU, i guess it could be because British police can no longer access the Shengen information system (SIS) database, or issue European Arrest Warrants (EAW).

That's a big if - why would a scammer risk the liability of operating in the EU if they can trivially outsource to somewhere untouchable?

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#37

Post by jl6 »

franga2000 wrote: post #28
Johnyma22 wrote: post #5

Britain being where the victims are, not the criminals. Some reasons why Brits might be so so vulnerable: * Major: English speaking so common to be targeted from less affluent ex-commonwealth countries. * Major: Ageing population have most of the wealth. * Major: Lots of vulnerable victims online and relatively high social media engagement. * Major: Little fear of retaliation (other than Jim Browning). The UK is havi…

Yeah, Jim Browning definitely needs to go teach law enforcement how to do their job, preferably in exchange for the biggest consulting cheque the world has ever seen. Ths problem, as always, is that they don't actually want to do that. They'd rather stay incompetent because it lets them let criminals off more easily. We have the same problem where I live but with illegal work for often far below minimum wage. The cop…

Did you report the wage theft crime that you suspected?

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#38

Post by blackhaz »

happyflower wrote: post #33

Why can a 78-year old widow's life savings be managed through an online bank system? Bring back local branch offices where people have to manage their high-risk accounts in-person.

You can't even talk to a live support person on the phone anymore. Just moved to the UK (from Czech Republic) and was shocked how everything is IVR here. We are all just numbers in the database here.

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#39

Post by _hilro »

franga2000 wrote: post #28
Johnyma22 wrote: post #5

Britain being where the victims are, not the criminals. Some reasons why Brits might be so so vulnerable: * Major: English speaking so common to be targeted from less affluent ex-commonwealth countries. * Major: Ageing population have most of the wealth. * Major: Lots of vulnerable victims online and relatively high social media engagement. * Major: Little fear of retaliation (other than Jim Browning). The UK is havi…

Yeah, Jim Browning definitely needs to go teach law enforcement how to do their job, preferably in exchange for the biggest consulting cheque the world has ever seen. Ths problem, as always, is that they don't actually want to do that. They'd rather stay incompetent because it lets them let criminals off more easily. We have the same problem where I live but with illegal work for often far below minimum wage. The cop…

What an absolutely infantile comment.

Re: An unprecedented wave of online bank fraud is hitting Britain

#40

Post by bluedino »

robotmay wrote: post #16

Ooh we're still the capital of something. Personally I think this comes down to ineffective education in many cases. Yes, some of these scams are getting quite impressively advanced, and they tend to target older people who are declining in cognitive ability, but so often the victims are absolutely unwilling to admit they were a bit stupid. It's always someone else's fault, like the bank, or the police, or Facebook,…

It's not a British thing, people get scammed in the US by the simplest and dumbest scams every day.

The news is always warning people not to transfer money to the IRS etc if they call

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