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Comment by fakedang | Hacker News Reader

> Eventually, she requested a refund through her bank and complained to the UK's Financial Ombudsman Service. A senior investigator there has provisionally recommended that the bank return $39,000 (£30,000) to Amy, according to documents seen by the BBC. She is still waiting for her bank to agree to the recommendation.

Glad that this is possible in the UK. There are a ton of folks in Dubai itself who have fallen to similar scams, but they have had no reprieve from their banks (most of which are actually all too happy to facilitate those scams).

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I whole heartedly disagree. This guy is clearly a crook, I feel horrible for the woman but this is basic B2B contracts. Banks shouldn’t be the arbiter of B2B contract terms.

I am very curious about who’s downvoting this; do people really think it’s the bank’s responsibility?

My understanding is that when you transfer large sums (such as 30K) to an overseas account for the first time, the British bank is required to block it and ask you questions.

The first time I transferred money to an overseas account in my name, the bank blocked the transfer for a day until I gave them proof that I was the owner of the account, what I was doing with the money and that I wasn’t being scammed.

That's for account hacking and similar. In this case, the customers were buying "tech services" and at least not expecting to be scammed.

These are for personal bank accounts. Business banking is different.

Small business accounts are covered by the same rules.

Probably people who do not understand how the UK system works and think the banks are just recovering the money rather than taking a loss when the money canot be recovered.

And guess who is paying for her mistake? Everyone except the perpetrator. That bank refund comes from somewhere.

Exactly, which is why banks are loathe to approve such transfers in the first place. I'm wholly surprised that the banking ombudsman is able to force such transaction reversals.

> wholly surprised that the banking ombudsman is able to force such transaction reversal

They can't force transaction reversals or clawbanks. They actually force the bank to take the hit.

In my country this is only possible if enough funds are in the target account (banks coorporate), it's not a general customer refund...

In the UK if the funds cannot be recovered the bank takes the loss for push fraud.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-to-do-if...

It has made banks very nervous about transfers as even payments to a legitimate business can be part of a a fraud (e.g. buy gold and hand it over to the fraudster for "safe keeping") and people have complained they have had problems making legitimate transfers.

Oh, that really explains some stories I have heard about cars. That banks simply refuse some purchases from more independent sellers. Sometimes the fraud detection and avoidance can go too far.

I did not know about it as a problem with cars, but it makes sense that it is.

It is likely to come up a lot with private sales. Banks are unlikely to let the seller deposit cash (because of money laundering rules), so if they do not allow a payment by transfer its going to become impossible.

It seems unfair to other customers of the bank to require the bank to "return" 75% of the money.

This should be a matter for business insurance.

Small businesses will often not have business insurance, and private individuals will not.

I doubt insurance covers this sort of thing though.

ti is quite annoying getting "is this a fraud?" warnings on every transfer - even small amounts to my kids!

How does that work? Her bank is responsible for the delivery of services she agrees on with third parties in other countries?

I honestly don't know. That's why I'm surprised the UK actually has provisions for clawing back funds. Maybe they put adequate pressure on the Dubai-based banks to reverse the transfer?

No, the bank just takes a loss if necessary. See my comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43810904

But it does not apply to international transfers: Apparently international payments are no covered: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/businesses/complaints...

Of course the victims might have transferred to an account the scammer has in the UK

Falling for a company that doesn't deliver the level of quality it promised seems to stretch the definition of "scam".

Is there any requirement of diligence, or can you basically jump on any "100% profit in 3 weeks" scam and get (most of) the money back when it doesn't work out?

No, but in this case I think it does meet the definition of scam.

There is a requirement for diligence, but this requires not being "grossly negligent". Even this is waived for people classed as vulnerable (I do not know exactly what that means).

Except that she still hasn't received the money back yet

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