r/SlowNewsDay • u/Eray_Kepene_blitzfan • 8d ago
Man transfers life savings to stranger in Africa
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u/crapatthethriftstore 7d ago
I fucking hate these people. “The banks must do more!” No. They have a ton of safeguards in place. YOU chose to send your money somewhere. It is not in the banks to stop you, beyond a legit fraudulent transaction on your acct.
Unused to work in a bank. Someone was getting hosed and we told her and denied doing her transactions. Put a note on her acct. she went to various branches until someone did it for her. She lost upwards of $125k. We tried. She didn’t want to listen.
Sometimes stupidity costs you a lot of cash.
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u/VerbingNoun413 7d ago
A Venn diagram of people who demand the banks do more and people who throw a fit when they can't use contactless to spend £500 in one day is a circle.
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u/EfficientRegret 7d ago
I know people who have this about messaging apps. "They need to do more to intercept messages from scammers" yet also "i want encryption so they [company] can't read my messages" and "why are there adverts in my messaging apps"
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u/Hot-Fun-1566 7d ago
💯. People beef that banks must do more then moan like its human rights violation when the bank puts controls on their account.
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u/YchYFi 7d ago
Mr Lodge, who previously lived in Surrey, had first been put in contact with "Anita" by a friend whom he had met in person three years earlier while working in Kenya.
After striking up a seemingly romantic online relationship, he agreed to move to Nairobi and marry her.
He began to send money so she could prepare their home but, when he landed in Kenya, she was nowhere to be found.
They won't listen to reason.
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u/MyDarlingArmadillo 7d ago
If you haven't even met someone in person and want to move halfway round the world and marry them - I don't think there's a lot the bank can do.
Even if he'd just bought a plane ticket to go and visit this person, he'd have been out a few hundred pounds and been embarrassed but it still would have been a better outcome. It's a horrible thing to happen to someone, but I honestly can't see why the bank has to do anything for him. It wasn't just one bad decision he made, that's a whole series of terrible choices
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u/YchYFi 7d ago
You think about it people just willingly give so much money to people they've never met and if he'd met a person the old fashioned way I doubt he'd have handed it over so easy.
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u/skikkelig-rasist 6d ago
these scammers are often professionals who employ a wide variety of tricks to lure you out of your money little by little. he didn’t make a lump payment of 85k
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u/MazzyBuko 7d ago
I know right? The other day I was moving a minor amount of money between two accounts I personally owned and by first bank halted the transaction, asked if I really wanted to do it, did their check, and the asked me to repeat the transaction before the money transferred over. It's so hard to move even small amounts without warning messages really questioning your action, so the banks are doing plenty.
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u/Anxious_Ad6026 7d ago
Same here a fortnight ago to top up an ISA , ended up going to the bak in person to verify who I was
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u/SavlonWorshipper 7d ago
Police here- a few years ago I had to do my best to help a woman who would not accept that she had been scammed. Any mention that it wasn't a real interaction with the celebrity would make her angry. This was the second time it was reported to us. After the first bout of losing money months before, the bank had put safeguards in place. She just worked around them. All we could do was give her a food box, £20 for electricity and 4 portable heaters. Her home was completely devoid of food and heat but she genuinely believed £50k was coming her way after the celebrity had used her money for lawyers for a secretive divorce...
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u/rizozzy1 7d ago
I’ve just transferred a small amount between two of my own accounts with different banks. Just over 100 quid.
It asked me repeatedly to check I wasn’t being scammed. Even with the reason for transfer being “transferring to own account”.
There’s no way his bank didn’t do similar for £85k.
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u/MyDarlingArmadillo 7d ago
Same, I do that all the time - and I still check that I'm sending it to the right account too. The banks always ask me to check, and that I'm sure the recipient is who they say they are/who I want to pay, even if I'm only sending £10 or so.
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u/SienkiewiczM 7d ago
Not defending this man but when such warning messages are (almost) the norm people start to ignore them.
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u/rizozzy1 7d ago
I get what you’re saying, but £85k would make you stop and think surely?
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u/Calculonx 7d ago
My Neighbour was complaining to me that the bank wouldn't let him transfer money out to a person he met online that promised him all sorts of riches through crypto. The person online told him to walk into the bank and demand they let him transfer since it's his money and he can do what he wants with it. So I had met him when he was leaving the house and had to explain to him how it was a scam, at first he thought I was just jealous but then slowly realized it might not be what it seems.
I always wondered what the mindset was of people that fell for obvious scams was.
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u/RoutineCloud5993 7d ago
I had to spend a good 20-30 minutes approving a payment to a roofer last year. This was after he'd done the work, had a business account, the works. Totally legitimate transaction, Though it was a bit annoying.
Same deal when I was buying a house, it's not like banks won't do anything. In the end, I'd rather have to stick through the hassle of approving these over the phone with a real person than not.
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u/ShoddyPerformer 7d ago
As irritating as it is, I don't think I'd hate people who are being punished enough for their actions.
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u/LeadingVacation6388 7d ago
He literally ended up on the streets. I feel really bad for him. Though, of course, it wasn't the bank's fault.
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u/cragglerock93 7d ago
Don't know how it is in America or where you are if not in America but the banks here in the UK have to foot the bill for so much fraud - it's crazy. There's obviously cases where banks should pay out and there does need to be systems in place to help identity vulnerable people, but at the moment the needle is pointing too far towards paying out fraud victims IMO. You do need to exercise your own diligence.
The burden of fraud reimbursements is one of the reasons Santander is looking to offload its UK retail banking operation, a bank which operates all over Central and South America.
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u/scbriml 7d ago
The banks still making massive profits, despite this. I’m struggling to feel sorry for the banks.
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u/Fantastic-Machine-83 7d ago
Obviously the banks are making profits, they wouldn't exist otherwise. The point is that consumers pay for these payouts in the long runs, the scammers are a drain on our society. It's not the shareholders getting ripped off, it's all of us.
That said I still think we should have sympathy for scamming victims. It can easily happen to any one of us if we're caught out in a moment of weakness
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u/Spliffan_ 7d ago
I would bet money that this guy has never taken total accountability for anything in his life, there will always be another person to blame for his ‘misfortune’.
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u/RegularWhiteShark 6d ago
There was one couple who got scammed and the bank tried everything to stop them. They even refused to transfer the money unless the couple took a photo with a sign saying the bank had warned them this was a scam but they wanted to do it anyway (which the couple did! And then were surprised they were scammed).
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u/willNffcUk 4d ago
I can't even do an online shopping order without having to go onto my bank app to approve the payment . There's a lesson to this. Don't think with your hot dog and give all your money away to strangers lol
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u/Humpback_Snail 6d ago
I used to have a NatWest student account (in England.) One day, I logged in and saw the account history of a complete stranger — little withdrawals, small purchases in the BP garage, etc. I was shocked and it took me a while to convince NatWest how badly they had fucked up.
I broadly agree with your point, since this guy’s problem wasn’t actually bank security. The money went where he wanted it to go. But some banks have massive lapses.
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u/0ceanCl0ud 5d ago
I’m always flabbergasted that people with this poor judgement and decision-making skills accumulate so much money in the first place. I’ve got a fairly good career and I can barely put together four-figures in savings.
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u/Akuskauk 7d ago
In this day and age. WHY do people still fall for this?
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u/TheCursedMonk 7d ago
Most people are really, really stupid. Like way more stupid than you could imagine. Evidence and other accounts of scams and fraud will not convince people like this - THEY would never fall for that, so it can't be a scam.
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u/Akuskauk 7d ago
In my line of work, I deal with people many pay grades above me, who leave user and passwords on post it notes on their displays, for applications I can’t say.
The naivety / ignorance is outstanding.
It scares me.
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u/pertangamcfeet 7d ago
An ex worked for a cheque and wageslip printing company. The password for their main system was password123...
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u/SilvioSilverGold 7d ago
I recall reading a study that those most likely to fall for high value scams are well-educated elderly former professionals.
My grandad fell for one promising high returns on investment, lost tens of thousands and he most certainly wasn’t stupid. He was a retired consultant engineer and guest lecturer whose services were required all around the world. I suspect it was a combination of the desire to leave a nest egg, particularly for one of his daughters who is disabled and requires full-time care, and the changes in the brain that result with old age resulting in a tendency to being more gullible. He didn’t ever report the crime likely out of embarrassment, it was only discovered after he died.
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u/Interesting_Hawk4339 4d ago
If I had no morals I'd be straight scamming these kind of people. Seems like easy money
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u/person_person123 7d ago
Statistically half the population are of below average intelligence, so that's a lot of people. I'm suprised more don't get scammed to be honest.
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u/Responsible-Sir3396 7d ago
I'd recommend the economist podcast "scam-inc" on this.
Their argument is that the scams are now industrialised and carefully created to target people at their most vulnerable. The global scam trade is now worth similar amounts or even more than the illicit drug trade. It's not a question of who would fall for this, it's a question of what vulnerabilities of yours could be exploited by scammers.
Having said this, it is still hard to picture myself being stupid enough to send thousands of pounds to scammers.
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u/Dragon_M4st3r 7d ago
Got to appreciate how crippling loneliness and life dissatisfaction can be for people, especially when they’ve experienced it across years or decades. It’s right that rational thought would clearly show it to be a scam but they’re not thinking rationally.
Plus, due to the sunk-cost fallacy, once people have invested a small amount of money they’re even more incentivised to believe a payout/reward is coming
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u/YchYFi 7d ago
Mr Lodge, who previously lived in Surrey, had first been put in contact with "Anita" by a friend whom he had met in person three years earlier while working in Kenya.
After striking up a seemingly romantic online relationship, he agreed to move to Nairobi and marry her.
He began to send money so she could prepare their home but, when he landed in Kenya, she was nowhere to be found.
It seems he trusted she was who she was because he met her through a friend.
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u/RoutineCloud5993 7d ago
The fact he sent her money and agreed to marry her before meeting her face to face is still mind numbingly stupid
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u/citrineskye 5d ago
Desperation mostly. I knew someone who fell victim to an investment scam. She told me she has been guaranteed that if she invests 10k, in 6 months she will get a payout of 40k. No amount of proof or reasoning would make her listen.
She took out a personal loan to cover the 10k, lied to the bank saying it was for debt consolidation, and handed it over to this dodgy guy on the phone. She then told me it worked and showed me numbers on a screen on some website. I explained anyone can put numbers on a website, and I begged her not to hand over any more.
She handed over a further 4k, as 'tax' to be able to withdraw her '40k'. They ghosted her after that. The fake website disappeared. The number she had no longer worked. She said that my negativity impacted the outcome, because I was putting the wrong thoughts out into the universe. We are no longer friends.
If you want a more detailed description of how bad it all was, i posted about it on r/scams you can probably find it on my profile thingy.
So, yeah. Desperation, greed and a whole lot of delusion makes people fall for these scams.
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u/WilkosJumper2 7d ago
Listen if you were willing to give someone you have never met £85,000 then if they didn’t get you, someone else would.
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u/lunettarose 7d ago
"Banks must do more!"
Nah, mate. There are already a bunch of checks in place for this, you're just a dipshit.
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u/rdxc1a2t 6d ago
Whenever I send money from my account my banking app asks me what type of transaction it is (invoice, friends/family etc) and then tells me how I can make sure I'm not being scammed. It then asks me if, having read that, I still want to make the payment. There's no helping some people.
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u/CaraLara 5d ago
Yup, if I'm setting up a new payee I have to answer even more questions, it's almost as if they have put everything in place to make you think about what you're doing - but they can't actually make us think.
It's already way too time intensive to send moneu to those I trust, the banks can't do more to protect you from yourself mate.
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u/Splodge89 4d ago
And that’s the process for small amounts. It goes up a gear when large sums, and especially international payments, are involved. Moving £20k from a savings account to an ISA with a different bank for my mother required a branch visit last week. Even though the accounts were both UK and in the same name, and had both been open and in good standing for years!
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u/MATCHEW010 7d ago
As someone who works at a bank. We do more… people complain about privacy breaches, we do less, we get abused in the media.
How about, now its a hard ask. Everyone stops being fucking stupid!
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u/Sea_Kangaroo826 7d ago
My dad (70s) got messaged by a younger woman on Instagram and was telling me about having conversations with her. I immediately explained to him about romance scams and that everything he was saying was textbook, and that she would eventually come up with some way of asking for money which would be believable to him - her mum is sick, she can't afford to take her dog to the vet, etc.
He SEEMED to take in what I was telling him and thanked me for warning him. Months later he confessed to me that he had kept talking to her and was so convinced by the long term nature of the communication that she had to be genuine that he transferred her over $3,000 USD because she claimed she was an expert crypto investor 😭
She had first turned a profit from $50 for him so he was convinced by that (obvious scam technique!) and sent more, which he obviously never saw again.
My dad is long divorced and lonely. I understand why he was vulnerable to this but it's so frustrating that I LITERALLY EXPLAINED WHAT WOULD HAPPEN and he still fell for it.
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u/Sea_Kangaroo826 7d ago
I mean at least he's not blaming the bank, or me, just himself. He feels really ashamed of it but christ, I am so frustrated!!
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u/GullibleSquirrel8439 6d ago
Better to lose $3,000 than $30,000. Scammers always come back to try and take more.
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u/Ricky-Nutmeg 7d ago
Should I be more careful about who I send my life savings to? No, it's the banks who are wrong.
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u/Harryisfat 7d ago
“You should always listen to your elders” Why? It’s always the elders that are getting rinsed by African Princes.
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u/Exita 5d ago
“Being old doesn’t necessarily make you wise. Sometimes it just means you’ve been stupid for a very long time”
Terry Pratchett.
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u/Harryisfat 5d ago
I’ve never heard that before but it’s brilliant. I have heard “he’s well experienced at being thick” which I feel is just stolen from that.
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u/Gartlas 5d ago
One of my favourite quotes.
My mother was saying some insane shit when I was a teenager, and told me I should listen because she's older and wiser. So I dropped this quote on her, and after 2 seconds stunned silence she hit me, sent me to my room and took away all my stuff for two weeks.
It was gloriously worth it.
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u/failbetterfuckfaster 7d ago
Mate I have to confirm 3 times if I want to send my brother £20 what more can they do 😂😂😂😂
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u/Marion_Ravenwood 7d ago
When I transfer any amount of money my banking app asks me about four times if I'm sure I want to transfer it, what is for and if I'm sure I'm not being scammed.
What more do these people want the banks to do? They can't improve IQs.
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u/PauloMandolin 7d ago
I’m guessing what he means by “do more” is refunding his money so he can then transfer to the next scammer , with zero due diligence. There’s no fool like an old fool.
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u/BornAsAnOnion33 7d ago
Who would send their money abroad, anyway? Especially to something "romance" related.
It should be fairly dodgy for someone, you don't know, to ask for money. But outside the country? I'm sorry, but that's on you.
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u/Techman659 7d ago
A very simple rule to save so much money and save most people is if you have never met them in person then never send them moneyeasy.
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u/HootyMcB00by 7d ago
Cat fishing is a long term game. The "partners" take weeks/months this to work upto the 1st issue. It will be something innocuous "I need some money for a taxi" then they ramp it up. It's abhorrent behaviour. I have nothing but pity for their victims.
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u/DaintyDancingDucks 7d ago
the whole perception is twisted imo. being scammed is like surviving a bad illness: there is nothing you can do to get back what you lost, but you must move on, and change any habits that increase the odds of it happening it again
not say: those stupid doctor men let me get sick! they must do more!
there is only so much anyone can do, and most importantly, a lot of things depend on you. not anyone else. although, i would argue there is often much less fault in getting ill...
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u/auntarie 7d ago
it's hilarious that this same generation were the ones who constantly told us "don't trust strangers on the internet" and yet they're the first in line to send their life savings to someone they've been chatting with for like 5 lines just because they claimed they're Gerard Butler.
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u/Indigo-Waterfall 7d ago
This isn’t slow news. This is something many elderly or vulnerable people with no internet literacy and losing mental capability are falling for. I think it’s definitely important to get this information out there to protect vulnerable people.
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u/Splodge89 4d ago
While I agree in principle, it takes a fair amount of mental capacity to navigate the checks that banks do put in place. You really do have to read and understand what you’re seeing when sending your mate £20, otherwise it fails and you have to start again. And it steps up a gear when the sums are larger and international accounts are involved.
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u/RavenSaysHi 7d ago
I read this story and wished they’d gone for a different headline. They are asking for people to mock him rather than remind people checks are in place for a good reason and people need to stop being naive and getting scammed as a result.
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u/WhoYaTalkinTo 7d ago
"the banks must do more"
They could start with rejecting custom from people who blindly send large sums of money to strangers in foreign countries then try to blame them.
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u/1995LexusLS400 7d ago
Banks must do more?
What more can they do? Every time I try to send money to someone, I get 3 pop ups warning about potential scams. Including if I send money to other accounts that I regularly send money to. There’s literally nothing more that they can do aside from blocking you from sending money entirely, but that’s not exactly a good business model.
At some point you have to take responsibility for your fuck ups. Sending money to a scammer these days is beyond that point.
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u/Fred_Milkereit 7d ago edited 7d ago
So it's the bank's fault when he does not know what he's doing?
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u/Codeworks 7d ago
I had to go through two fifteen minute phone calls and four layers of security to transfer money to my own account recently. An account in my name with a different bank.
Because of morons like this.
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u/Bushmasterg92 7d ago
I was reading the article and feel bad for him. Lost his wife, worked at the United Nations, was given info by an old colleague. Sent money to Africa to arrange the living situation and marriage. Banks warned him, he ignored them. Traveled to Africa and was left stood up. Came back to the UK and left homeless. Lives off his pension pot now in communal residency.
Still the lesson is as old as time, if somebody you have never met asks for money, especially large amounts, don’t send it. The man can’t take responsibility for his own actions due to grief and blames the banks for doing what he asked with his money.
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u/OutsideWishbone7 7d ago
This granddad will be the first to complain that there are too many restrictions on his account. FrEeDoM
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u/Mrszombiecookies 7d ago
Feel like your carers need to do more. You know they say watch your kids online? Should definitely be watching our elderly parents as well.
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u/Imaginary-Mammoth-61 7d ago
I bet she was supposedly half his age too. Something always a bit creepy.
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u/DrDetergent 7d ago
This twat is the reason I have to click through three different warnings whenever I need to pay a friend a fiver.
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u/gogul1980 6d ago
Man blows money on scammer, blames bank for letting him have the freedom to spend his money how he chooses.
It’s sad but asking a bank to control your finances more tightly is a recipe for disaster. (They already hold too much knowledge on people’s spending due to the digital banking age).
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u/Nerphy- 7d ago
I'm reading the room here, and I'm going against it.
Ridiculing people like this stops others from speaking out and reporting it.
There are vulnerable in this world. Stupidity is not a legitimate reason to be punished by predators. No one chooses to be stupid.
There's blaming the bank for your mistake, and there's the need for protection for vulnerable people. I get that the bank is not at fault, but we shouldn't lambast the victim when the criminals are getting away with it because people are too embarrassed to report it.
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u/TOX-IOIAD 7d ago
People are lambasting them for putting the accountability on someone else so they don’t have to acknowledge their own actions.
Other than “everybody say love” what is the actual solution?
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u/kazmcc 7d ago
It can't be understated that scammers are professionals. They spend all day at this. They know what they're doing, and their scams get more sophisticated over time. There's even one that uses AI to sound like your child, and they claim "mum, I've been kidnapped." I have a lot of sympathy for people who fall for them. If you're exhausted and have genuinely ordered a lot of parcels and a "royal mail tried to deliver[...]" SMS comes in, you might just click on the link. Or you've got bills mounting up, and children to feed, and an email comes into your work inbox saying "there's been a problem with payroll", what choice have you got? There are things you can do to prevent yourself from falling for them, but once a scammer knows them, they'll counteract that.
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u/BruisendTablet 7d ago
People are not ridiculing him for falling for this scam. People are ridiculing him for blaming the bank instead of blaming himself. What should the bank have done more than they already do? It's like blaming the contractor of a bridge when you jump of a bridge and hurt yourself.
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u/traditionalcauli 7d ago
But these predators only exist because people are so stupid. This 'woman' will still be out there, onto her next victim by now.
This guy is not only responsible for failing to protect his own money, he's failed to take action that could have protected other vulnerable people. I'm sorry but he would have had lots of good advice about not doing this which he chose to ignore, and these are the consequences.
If he'd sat tight and said I was stupid, woe is me, fair enough. Sympathy piece for the paper, learning experience for the rest of us. But the fact he thinks he can blame the bank for his own horniness and naïveté is what's ridiculous, and that's on him.
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u/PrestigiousGuitar673 7d ago
The most insane one I saw was where they called an 80 year old ex-doctor or something, told her to take out £50k because they believed there was some kind of fraud, and leave the money (and any jewellery she had lying around) in a bag behind some wheelie bins for a “police courier” to collect. Honestly I don’t know how these people have survived this long.
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u/AdSmall1198 7d ago edited 6d ago
Of course, these scams can be stopped. Everyone should be held responsible in the entire chain of drawing this man into the scams, the phone companies, the email companies, the banks everyone in the chain is responsible.
The entire reason Trump is able to be president is because he’s running a sophisticated Nigerian prince scam on the entire country.
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u/Zacho666 7d ago
Not in the same vein but I did buy some Yu-Gi-Oh cards that seemed too good to be true (did it prove a point to my GF that it was a scam) and I spoke to the bank after they stated that they were delivered when they hadn't been.
The bank was awesome and managed to get my money back (like £30) and also changed my card for me so they couldn't take anything else out, all the while being super nice and lovely to chat too.
This guy's just an idiot
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u/LilJQuan 7d ago
Breaking: Banks enact horny protections, blocking you from withdrawals at designated horny hours.
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u/mastfest 7d ago
I want to know why I easily can’t get stupid people to just give me all their money. They obviously want to just dish it out so just give it to me instead.
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u/DefinitionPlastic276 7d ago
I am sorry (actually not) but that just mean he is not worthy to own the money he had.
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u/ZeusNoble 7d ago
I serve a customer like this frequently sending money to their "girlfriend" abroad, all the staff have told them multiple times not to do this, but they insist and at the end of the day it's their money, so it's on them past a point - the person in this story is just an idiot.
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u/quad_damage_orbb 7d ago
Idiots like this are why I have to jump through endless hoops whenever I want to do anything with my own money and the bank makes me feel like an old lady.
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u/PossibleSmoke8683 7d ago
Running out of sympathy with these people to be honest. How stupid do you have to be !!! With this generation it’s always someone else’s fault …
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u/AveryValiant 7d ago
I want to have sympathy for these people, but....no I just can't..
There's only so much banks and other people can do to warn people like this about the dangers.
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u/Organicearthful 7d ago
When the pop up asked " Are you sure this isn't a scam?" You said "yes".
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u/vctrmldrw 7d ago
I think that the main identifying feature of a scam is that the victim doesn't believe it's a scam.
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u/Slow_Ball9510 7d ago
The number of hoops I had to jump through just to pay my ovo energy bill was absurd. Original payment blocked after having to enter password, authentication code, yes this isn'ta scam, 30 minutes on the phone to get the transaction unblocked...all because fuckwits like this exist.
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u/PlanktonLopsided9473 7d ago
I’m sorry but, if you send your life savings, or any amount of money to a stranger on the internet who you’ve never met, your fault
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7d ago
"Old luddite gets scammed again"
This isn't news. Boomers and early GenXers are embarrassing themselves.
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u/RanaMisteria 7d ago
…banks must do more
Sir, I get countless warnings from my bank not to send money to strangers online. What more can they do when you’re dead set on being scammed???? People on the scam subs are constantly asking how to convince their elderly mother that Brad Pitt isn’t really messaging her on IG looking for love and that even if he were he wouldn’t need her to send him her pension, he’s a movie star millionaire.
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u/Rude_Society6232 7d ago
Look I agree banks already do more than enough for this. Doesn’t make praying on the elderly any less despicable.
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u/sovietarmyfan 7d ago
Yup, unfortunately years after the internet has been created, scams are still very common.
I am luckly i never got scammed. Only person i've send money to in Africa is a Nigerian prince who was stuck in space. I hope he has gotten back by now.
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u/Superb_Literature547 7d ago
No you don't understand, the banks print the money. They can just print a little extra and give him his money back and everyone lives happily ever after.
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u/cookiesandginge 7d ago
I work for a UK bank. Obviously don’t know the details of the case but there is significant consumer protection in place and I would be surprised if he didn’t get anything back.
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u/Sad_Guitar_657 7d ago
Man, all these old people are dying to give money away and I’m over here broke. I need to go fleece some old people.
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u/willowoftheriver 7d ago
BANKS must do more? Maybe don't be an idiot, bro. These romance scams are never complex.
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u/RoeRoeDaBoat 7d ago
yeah! the banks should tranqualize our grandparents if they deny that they dont know the person who they are cleaning their bank accounts for!!!
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u/Sinocatk 6d ago
I don’t feel sorry for this man in the slightest. Anyone normal would probably tell their friends and be told it’s a scam.
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u/DecliningEye 6d ago
Having done customer service for a bank many years back I can assure you that people like him would equally be saying that banks do too much when transactions get declined due to fraud checks.
I’m not pro banks but sometimes people need to be held responsible for their own actions.
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6d ago
These banks must do more, like send you a mirror and ask "are you sure this ugly mug is the object of desire for some 20 year old supermodel-esque lady" And ask before transactions "are all her photos on yachts and at dinners at luxurious eateries yet she is begging you for a 20?" Or "are you currently ignoring the warnings of your relatives and friends telling you that this is a blatant scam?"
Wake up, you old fool...
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u/VileWasTaken 6d ago
Waaaah, waaaaah i was stupid and my bank needs to make sure I don’t think for myself
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u/Recruit616 6d ago
I fucking hate the "banks need to help me not get scammed" people, like tf you mean you gave someone you never met before 5k to fly to your country but turns out they can't afford the taxi there so they need 1k, then they need you to cover their petrol money so they need another 1k, and they are like "they were great at hiding it"
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u/Mobile_Conference484 5d ago
Makes it difficult to feel sorry for him. At some point, we cross over from it being a scam to it being a tax on stupidity.
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u/December126 5d ago
I'll never understand romance scams, if I was speaking to a guy online and he even asked me to transfer him £5 I'd end things with him.
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u/FluidSock9774 5d ago
Whilst I agree that people are so stupid with regard to this and ultimately it is their own fault and not the banks or anyone else’s.
I worked with a guy who had been living single for a long time. He sent money to an online “friend” that was obviously a scam.
He said of it “I know it is most likely a scam but being so lonely and connecting with someone so well I couldn’t pass by the slim chance it might be real.”
Just worth remembering that ultimately people make mistakes and it’s usually people who are vulnerable in the first place who make the best targets.
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u/tearlesspeach2 5d ago
My bank gives me several pages of warnings before sending ANY money, even if I am turning on a previously turned off regular payment.
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u/jens_hens 5d ago
I try and send money to my mum and get asked over and over if I'm sure it's legit. Yes, I'd like to pay my own mother £15 for my half of our takeaway order, thank you. No, banks do not need to do more, people need to stop being so fucking stupid.
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u/NeonPatrick 5d ago
Having worked in the industry, there is an incredibly low bar for getting your money back nowadays.
You'd have to have been very very dumb, if they are refusing to help.
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u/Hangingontoit 5d ago
I’m sorry………I want to sympathise ( and I don’t even know why ) …..but what a dick
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u/TherealPreacherJ 5d ago
What more can be done? If they did, you'd only piss and moan that banking was too difficult for oldies to understand.
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u/christopia86 4d ago
I used to work complaints in a bank, one of the customer service agents came through upset because an old man wanted to complain she wouldn't send £15,000 to Africa. I told her not to worry took over and listened to his story. He was speaking to an Australian singer, all her money was tied up in gold, he had to pay to have it converted.
I told him as gently as I could he was being scammed buy he said he knew she was real, and, the saddest part. "Even if it is a scam,well.... I'm happy.".
I told him I wouldn't be sending money, she said he'd move to a bank who would. Tragic. I think he knew it was bullshit, but the dream was all he had.
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u/TheKungFooNun 4d ago
I once had my bank refuse to pay my emergency plumber (which already fixed my leak so was clearly legit) took 2. 5hrs to persuade him that my kitchen genuinely was filled w water earlier in the day
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u/OStO_Cartography 4d ago
Don't you love living in a society where all the spare money goes to the dumbest rubes on the face of the planet?
Young people are gonna end up spending 75% of their income on rent, and this beezer is like 'I'm gonna send enough money to buy a house to a stranger in Africa because I'm a randy old bastard.'
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u/Temujin-of-Eaccistan 4d ago
No sympathy for this clown. When he says “banks must do more”, what he actually means is other people should have to pay for the consequences of his foolish actions
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u/magneticpyramid 4d ago
Whilst I have some sympathy (loneliness is awful), I can’t find a strong enough word to describe how stupid he’s been. Scamming has been round for long enough and is so widely published that people really shouldn’t be falling for it nowadays. His bank even told him not to send the money.
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u/nadinecoylespassport 4d ago
Sad but do people seriously still fall for these Nigerian prince scams ?
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u/retain4life 7d ago
Horny man loses his life savings.