Oh ok, although you would have to be very very silly to send it to another account number than where it was received from.
But no doubt someone will fall for it
As I said, depending where you bank, it can be very hard to find out the customer's account number. With our bank you really have to know where to look and you have to do a bit of decoding of the information; it doesn't appear on statements or on transaction checks online. If you didn't know where to look you might well have to rely on the customer (or in this case fraudster) telling you their details.
Vin
Yes i understand that, it can be difficult and like i said someone a bit more naive could be drawn into this deception.
But i`ll stand by my statement, you would have to be very silly to refund a substantial amount to an account number given over the phone without double and triple checking where exactly its come from.
How exactly would you double check a customers bank details?
You have no way of finding out unless you have a contact number for them, or go round to their property.
Bank statements or online don’t show the account details of the senders bank.
Santander doesn't show the sender's sort code and account number, but Co-op Bank does. The only exceptions I'm aware of with Co-op is if the money comes from IF Bank.
Although I'm pretty scam savvy, this is one that might have got away if I weren't paying attention. I doubt that I would have fallen for it, but some scammers are very convincing. The scammer would need to be able to link the BACS setup with your phone number. If the outgoing reference is a company or personal name, rather than "Window Cleaner", this could be done as businesses tend not to be ex-directory. I am aware of an equivalent fraud with cheque overpayments - usually for items on ebay.
It's notable that banks invest a lot in fraud prevention where they are obliged to repay, but are less diligent when they don't. If they were held liable for incorrect BACS payments, you can bet that things would start changing very quickly.
A side note: One of my customers works in fraud prevention for the banking sector. When I gave him my bank details he was fine. However, I also give a reference based on his door number/house name + sort code (this is how I have them set up references). He said he wouldn't use that part as it could give a fraudster a second piece of information (in addition to his name). So we agreed on him using a specific, meaningless word in the reference. No problem. At least I know where it comes from. Here's the rub though. He doesn't trust everyone who works within the banking system. This is a guy who investigates banking fraud so I assume that his misgivings have a sound basis.