Scammed on a CNP transaction

[Cornwhaul]

More of a vent than anything else...

Never thought it would happen, there have been times that it almost had & I got ahead of it but this week, our almost 24 month old business has been scammed for 12k.

We have been taking card not present transactions for a while now & without issue. An order came in for 18k & although a little unsure, we processed the payment & all looked to be fine. We let the weekend & monday pass to ensure the banks were happy with the transaction & then started ending out the goods. On the day of the last delivery (Friday) the card company phoned to say that the transaction was fraudulent. It looks to me that the person making the payment & receiving the goods has had the last batch & decided to get them for free at a great cost to myself.

I have a friend who lives near the delivery address & asked him to take a look. The products are sat right on their property. The only issue is the name of the person that placed the order is different to the land owner. Also after getting in touch with the company associated with the billing address, they deny all knowledge.

fyi: it's not unusual for the delivery address to be different to the billing - we sell building materials.

Now here is the hammer blow: our NatWest bank account has been frozen, after spending an hour on the phone today, being passed around I was told to email the following: fpfcustomercontac@natwest.. FPF stands for 'first party fraud'.

To sum up. I spend a little over 12k to send materials to a 'customer' for the debit to be reversed & I'm now being accused of committing fraud. My personal & business bank accounts are frozen with no way of taking or making further payments. Overnight my company is basically shut down.

Now what?

 

[japancool]

Now here is the hammer blow: our NatWest bank account has been frozen, after spending an hour on the phone today, being passed around I was told to email the following: fpfcustomercontac@natwest.. FPF stands for 'first party fraud'.

What are they accusing you of?

 

[Cornwhaul]

What are they accusing you of?

Well my bank account has been frozen so it would look like they are accusing us of fraud.

The only point of contact is an email, no phone number at all. We will have to wait until they respond which has now left us completely screwed.

 

[Duke Fame]

More of a vent than anything else...

Never thought it would happen, there have been times that it almost had & I got ahead of it but this week, our almost 24 month old business has been scammed for 12k.

We have been taking card not present transactions for a while now & without issue. An order came in for 18k & although a little unsure, we processed the payment & all looked to be fine. We let the weekend & monday pass to ensure the banks were happy with the transaction & then started ending out the goods. On the day of the last delivery (Friday) the card company phoned to say that the transaction was fraudulent. It looks to me that the person making the payment & receiving the goods has had the last batch & decided to get them for free at a great cost to myself.

I have a friend who lives near the delivery address & asked him to take a look. The products are sat right on their property. The only issue is the name of the person that placed the order is different to the land owner. Also after getting in touch with the company associated with the billing address, they deny all knowledge.

fyi: it's not unusual for the delivery address to be different to the billing - we sell building materials.

Now here is the hammer blow: our NatWest bank account has been frozen, after spending an hour on the phone today, being passed around I was told to email the following: fpfcustomercontac@natwest.. FPF stands for 'first party fraud'.

To sum up. I spend a little over 12k to send materials to a 'customer' for the debit to be reversed & I'm now being accused of committing fraud. My personal & business bank accounts are frozen with no way of taking or making further payments. Overnight my company is basically shut down.

Now what?

You can recover the goods, do that quickly before whoever scammed you takes them.

 

[Cornwhaul]

You can recover the goods, do that quickly before whoever scammed you takes them.

The goods in question is 200 ton of loose gravel. It would cost at least 5k to recover & require a lot of logistics.

 

[MBE2017]

The goods in question is 200 ton of loose gravel. It would cost at least 5k to recover & require a lot of logistics.

Yet you would be £7k better off.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Well my bank account has been frozen so it would look like they are accusing us of fraud.

No, it could be fraud prevention!

 

[Cornwhaul]

Yet you would be £7k better off.

15k is the RRP. We can re-buy the same quantity of gravel for less than the 5k that it would cost in haulage fees to get it back to our location.

 

[WaveJumper]

Think I would be tempted to drop 200 ton through their letter box just for good measure

 

[Gyumri]

We let the weekend & monday pass to ensure the banks were happy with the transaction & then started ending out the goods.

The money was credited to your bank account so how has the debit card holder "reversed" the transaction?

Who has told you that the transaction has been reversed?

It sounds like your bank has unilaterally frozen your account while they report a suspicious credit of £18,000, in which case they are not allowed to tip you off or say anything as to why your account is blocked until they get clearance from the National Crime Unit? which has 14 days to investigate and approve the transaction.

It looks to me that the person making the payment & receiving the goods has had the last batch & decided to get them for free at a great cost to myself.

the card company phoned to say that the transaction was fraudulent.

Also after getting in touch with the company associated with the billing address, they deny all knowledge.

The products are sat right on their property. The only issue is the name of the person that placed the order is different to the land owner.

Who is the landowner - check for £3 at the land registry - as the gravel can hardly have been dumped on his land as an act of charity.

It must be for the purpose of doing up his property.

Don't take the gravel back but speak to whoever answers the door - point to the gravel - and say as politely as possible with any words that you can think of which do not begin with the letter "F" that the owner hasn't paid for the gravel.

 

[Cornwhaul]

The money was credited to your bank account so how has the debit card holder "reversed" the transaction?

Who has told you that the transaction has been reversed?

It sounds like your bank has unilaterally frozen your account while they report a suspicious credit of £18,000, in which case they are not allowed to tip you off or say anything as to why your account is blocked until they get clearance from the National Crime Unit? which has 14 days to investigate and approve the transaction.








Who is the landowner - check for £3 at the land registry - as the gravel can hardly have been dumped on his land as an act of charity.

It must be for the purpose of doing up his property.

Don't take the gravel back but speak to whoever answers the door - point to the gravel - and say as politely as possible with any words that you can think of which do not begin with the letter "F" that the owner hasn't paid for the gravel.

The term used was a debit chargeback. Early Friday morning the amount was removed from our bank account by the card gateway provider, shortly after our bank account was frozen. Your right in saying that the bank won't release any information, the call handler would only give us an email to direct our enquiry to. We have been back & forth today via emails with the bank.

I've already done a land registry search, the details do not match the name given on the order, there was an interesting article online involving the land owner & theft of 30k worth of generators.

All of my findings including land registry, planning applications at the delivery address & associates of the land owner found online have been forwarded to the card gateway, NatWest & the police.

Also had an interesting conversation today with a bloke that was asked to move the gravel to another site.

 

[Gyumri]

It's certainly a police matter but once you received your money I can't see how the funds could have been transferred back to the debit card holder even if he or she had nothing to do with the purchase.

On the other hand I assume you did not check whether the delivery address was the same as the cardholders address. There are some protections for merchants but only if they follow the card processing rules which apply to "customer not present" transactions.

You may need to read the conditions and the extent of the protection offered to you. If you send stuff to an address which is not the cardholder's that's might be an issue.

At the moment it is not clear whether the cardholder has something to do with the scam- perhaps check his identity on the internet.

 

[Scott DLE]

We have had our accounts frozen for something similar many years ago. They still gave us access to money to get by while they investigated and all direct debits were still paid. Took about a week to get sorted out, sending documents etc. I think you just need to let them investigate and give the bank all documentation including any emails order details from the fraudster. Once they see what has happened they shall un freeze the accounts. It’s banking policy to freeze first then investigate in this type of scenario.

 

[Cornwhaul]

Resurrecting this thread..

It's been almost a year since this nightmare, I've put this to the back of my head & tried to forget it entirely. Anyway, the outcome was a total loss of just over 15k.

Police investigated and could not find the fraudsters. Case closed as far as they are concerned.

The card of which the payment was made on was apparently stolen. We now have extra precautions in place & have prevented 2 further attempts of thefts of our hard earned money.

Thanks for everyone's input