Royal Navy engineer Aaron Gallagher was scammed out of £10,000 – and NatWest told him ‘not to worry’
Gallagher #Gallagher
Aaron Gallagher panicked when he received a call on his mobile from a woman claiming to be from his bank NatWest, telling him his money was at risk from fraudsters.
She pushed him to transfer his £10,000 savings urgently from his two bank accounts into a new ‘safe holding account’ she had set up.
Immediately suspicious, 23-year-old Aaron felt reassured when the professional-sounding caller pointed out the number she was calling from showing on his phone was the very same as the number on the back of his NatWest card.
Aaron, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, was told by the scammer that he had clicked on a dodgy link online and malicious software had been put on his phone allowing fraudsters to access his bank accounts.
She said NatWest had noticed two suspicious transactions carried out far from where he lives, and that the malware was blocking him from seeing it on his online banking.
“She was very convincing,” he said. “She asked me security questions just how a bank always does and there was background noise like she was in a call centre.”
She asked me security questions just like how a bank always does and there was background noise like she was in a call centre
Aaron Gallagher
The scam caller told Aaron to transfer £700.05 from his NatWest account and £9,274.05 from his Monzo account, which he was told had also been compromised, via a web link that looked genuine and which he received in an email from an address imitating the bank’s.
Shortly after he sent the money, the call ended “mid sentence”.
Immediately suspicious, Aaron called NatWest directly and was told by a genuine NatWest employee that he should wait for the caller to ring back and then follow her instructions.
“She told me not to worry,” he explained. “She said, well she’s calling you back, she may just be on a break or speaking to another customer. You’re best waiting for her to call you back.
“I knew I’d called the real NatWest number and I’d been through all the options and security and when someone at NatWest was basically saying this was genuine I thought it must be.”
But no call back came, and Aaron realised his hard-saved deposit had been stolen, leaving his dream to buy his first home with his girlfriend Rachael in tatters.
He called his bank again and this time a NatWest employee told him he’d been scammed.
Aaron, who works for the Royal Navy as a weapons engineer, said: “The fraudster even told me to max out my overdraft and I was literally left penniless. I felt sick when I found out I’d been scammed.”
After i got on the case, NatWest admitted the blunder, accepting their employee should have recognised the customer had been the victim of a complex scam sooner and saying it has now invested heavily in enhancing security.
A spokesperson said: “We are sorry about the level of service that Mr Gallagher received from NatWest, we have apologised and offered him a refund. We recognise that Mr Gallagher has been the victim of a complex scam and that this has been a very distressing experience for him.”
Monzo also agreed to refund the full amount stolen.
Low customer refund rate
The number of impersonation scams nearly doubled in the first six months of last year, according to banking trade body UK Finance, with Covid seeing more customers use online banking and people’s vulnerabilities being exploited.
Aaron fell prey to what’s known as authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where customers are tricked into making payments to criminals. He was also the victim of a scamming technique called telephone number ‘spoofing’.
It’s extremely easy for scammers to modify the caller ID of a phone call using commonly available software to mimic the number of a real company or authority. In the telecommunication industry, the ability to authenticate the caller ID is globally recognised as a major unsolved problem.
Almost £208m was lost to APP fraud during this period and of this £73.1 million was refunded to customers – only a third of cases.
A voluntary code was launched in May 2019 that sets out standards for banks to follow regarding APP scams. But not all banks have signed up (currently nine banking groups have, including NatWest Group). And there have been calls for more consistent application of the scheme by banks, and for banks to focus on preventing scams happening in the first place, from the Lending Standards Board (LSB), which oversees the code.
Furthermore, the code includes a pot of cash available to compensate ‘no-blame’ cases but this is an interim funding measure, that has been extended three times, and now runs until the end of June 2021.
The Government has been under pressure to introduce new legislation for the long-term and figure out a sustainable funding solution, something which has understandably slipped down the agenda with the impact of Covid.
What to do if you are not sure if a call is genuine
Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, warned that “criminals are experts are impersonating organisations that we know and trust”.
A spokesperson said: “It’s important to remember if you’re contacted out the blue by someone purporting to be from a well-known organisation, asking for your personal or financial details, that this could be a scam.”
The organisation advises:
For expert advice on how to get your money back if you’ve been scammed click here.
Do you have a real life story? Email claudia.tanner@inews.co.uk.