phone scam on BIL succeeds - any advise?

[Eloquent pilgrim]

On 4/12/2023 at 2:43 AM, Moonlover said:

This is why it is so wise to keep access funds in a passbook only term account. No on line connection, no card, strictly over the counter service only with passbook and ID. 

 

Why people keep their money so readily accessible is beyond my understanding.

Luddite 

[Moonlover]

 

7 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

On 4/12/2023 at 8:43 AM, Moonlover said:

This is why it is so wise to keep access funds in a passbook only term account. No on line connection, no card, strictly over the counter service only with passbook and ID. 

 

Why people keep their money so readily accessible is beyond my understanding.

 

7 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

Believe it or not some people don't have time to travel to the bank with a passbook and passport every time they want to withdraw money, pay a bill, do any kind of transaction. What a weird way to live.

My bad. I should have said excess funds. Well spotted.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Moonlover

[NextG]

14 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

I accept that there are some good scammers operating, but this is not an example of one; nobody that has the nous and acumen required to accumulate more than 400k Baht in their account, would give it away on a phone call instruction.

 

It is an absolute fortune to what the OP is now claiming are a poor rural, uneducated family. How did he make the transfer while talking on the phone ? Using a laptop to access his account ?

 

You’ve been here long enough to know the security palaver involved in making such a large transfer in Thailand.

 

There is only one scammer here, and it is the brother-in-law, who is either trying to scam his own bank with an accomplice, or extract a large sympathy payment from the OP.

Don’t be silly…

[Eloquent pilgrim]

2 hours ago, NextG said:

Don’t be silly…

 

Puerile, unedifying comment

[Moonlover]

4 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

On 4/12/2023 at 8:43 AM, Moonlover said:

This is why it is so wise to keep access funds in a passbook only term account. No on line connection, no card, strictly over the counter service only with passbook and ID. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

Luddite 

At first I didn't understand your blunt (to the point of rudeness) response, until I realized my error.

 

I should. have course said 'excess funds', not 'access funds'. Does that make sense to you now?

[Eloquent pilgrim]

10 minutes ago, Moonlover said:

 

At first I didn't understand your blunt (to the point of rudeness) response, until I realized my error.

 

I should. have course said 'excess funds', not 'access funds'. Does that make sense to you now?

Yes indeed it does, so thanks for the explanation. What a difference one word can make eh ?

[NextG]

1 hour ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

 

Puerile, unedifying comment

Some might attach that description to all of your posts on this thread. 

[patman30]

On 4/12/2023 at 3:42 PM, bradiston said:

Some sort of profiling software? Or AI?

Many literally read from a script, telescams are nothing new.

[SunnyinBangrak]

On 4/13/2023 at 6:10 PM, Eloquent pilgrim said:

I accept that there are some good scammers operating, but this is not an example of one; nobody that has the nous and acumen required to accumulate more than 400k Baht in their account, would give it away on a phone call instruction.

 

It is an absolute fortune to what the OP is now claiming are a poor rural, uneducated family. How did he make the transfer while talking on the phone ? Using a laptop to access his account ?

 

You’ve been here long enough to know the security palaver involved in making such a large transfer in Thailand.

 

There is only one scammer here, and it is the brother-in-law, who is either trying to scam his own bank with an accomplice, or extract a large sympathy payment from the OP.

You are wrong about almost everything here.

 

 Who said anything about being "poor"? Only you. Can you accept being educated to a low level and living in a rural area is not a guarantee of poverty. Plenty of rural folk became very rich from land sales for example, or in his case being a very successful barramundi farmer. Didn't need to learn algebra or have fancy degrees to know how best to care for his fish, and the many fellow fish farmers coming to him for advise and help on their own operations says much. 

 

 He is not wanting or expecting me to pay him a dime. It would be very offensive for me to make such an offer. I started this thread off my own bat trying to understand how this all happened, and to make sure it really was a lost cause. That it seemed (and still does) too incredible for words, is not an excuse to mock and insult.

 

 Thanks for the genuine replies here guys, sorry I could not bring much more detail to how the scam worked exactly. Briefing the farang in the family on this most embarrassing episode is not top priority for him.

[Eloquent pilgrim]

2 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

You are wrong about almost everything here.

 

 Who said anything about being "poor"? Only you. Can you accept being educated to a low level and living in a rural area is not a guarantee of poverty. Plenty of rural folk became very rich from land sales for example, or in his case being a very successful barramundi farmer. Didn't need to learn algebra or have fancy degrees to know how best to care for his fish, and the many fellow fish farmers coming to him for advise and help on their own operations says much. 

 

 He is not wanting or expecting me to pay him a dime. It would be very offensive for me to make such an offer. I started this thread off my own bat trying to understand how this all happened, and to make sure it really was a lost cause. That it seemed (and still does) too incredible for words, is not an excuse to mock and insult.

 

 Thanks for the genuine replies here guys, sorry I could not bring much more detail to how the scam worked exactly. Briefing the farang in the family on this most embarrassing episode is not top priority for him.

 

 

 

You are right, you did not say they were poor and I should not have made that assumption for which I apologise.

 

Returning to the crux of the matter, the phantom 400,000 Baht. Whilst expecting everyone to accept that your BIL was the victim of a massive scam, you offer no information whatsoever as to how it happened.

 

You haven’t even said which bank it was that his account is with. The usual way to transfer such a large amount would be to go to the bank, with bank book and ID card, and set the transfer up in the bank. However, you said he went to the bank later to complain, so he obviously didn’t use that method.

 

So, did he make the transfer using his phone or a laptop ? This would obviously mean that he has online or mobile banking. It would also involve some strict security protocols; he would have needed to set up a new payee, which would have to be verified by sending a OTP to his registered mobile. Then the same procedure again to make the transfer, after having lifted daily transfer limits, which are a mandatory setting with most banks. It is not easy to transfer 400k to a completely unknown account online.

 

Or did he make the transfer at an ATM ? this would mean having a bank card and the knowledge of how to use other services at an ATM, apart from withdrawals; and I am not sure how you could transfer that amount at an ATM.

 

Don’t tell us that he is too embarrassed to say how it happened, because he wasn’t too embarrassed to claim it has happened. If you genuinely want help and advice, then you need to tell us how it happened; until then, it just seems like a fantasy.

 

Nice penultimate sentence BTW …… fishing for likes, not much.

[Eloquent pilgrim]

3 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

He is not wanting or expecting me to pay him a dime. It would be very offensive for me to make such an offer

 

Really ?

 

Just offer him 50k and see how offended he gets ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[scorecard]

On 4/12/2023 at 7:56 AM, steven100 said:

This cannot be done online or at an ATM without his PIN, a cloned atm card, or user name and password ....   otherwise it's impossible.

OK, but if there's a bank employee involved maybe that employee knows how to get access through other databases/processes/procedures etc?

Edited April 15, 2023 by scorecard

[scorecard]

On 4/13/2023 at 6:10 PM, Eloquent pilgrim said:

I accept that there are some good scammers operating, but this is not an example of one; nobody that has the nous and acumen required to accumulate more than 400k Baht in their account, would give it away on a phone call instruction.

 

It is an absolute fortune to what the OP is now claiming are a poor rural, uneducated family. How did he make the transfer while talking on the phone ? Using a laptop to access his account ?

 

You’ve been here long enough to know the security palaver involved in making such a large transfer in Thailand.

 

There is only one scammer here, and it is the brother-in-law, who is either trying to scam his own bank with an accomplice, or extract a large sympathy payment from the OP.

- You're making a lot of assumptions.

- You can find older naive folks in many countries who have, over decades, saved large amounts of money.

[hotchilli]

On 4/12/2023 at 5:51 AM, SunnyinBangrak said:

And that's it!! I find it hard to believe in this day and age electronic money transfers can't be traced? There must be cctv footage from when they opened this bank account? 

I find it hard to believe in this day and age someone transfers money like that without first checking every detail.

[Surasak]

I had something similar happen to me some time ago. I don't normally give my card details to be stored for future use, but having used Lazada for a couple of years, one item could only be bought with payment from a bank card. Duly paid and no problems for a few months then all of a sudden 27,000baht disappeared from my Thai bank. Checked at the local bank and got a statement and a payment of the said amount had been deducted by, of all places, Deliveroo in the UK. There had been two deductions and two additions of 32baht to the A/C prior to the 27,000 deduction. I contacted the bank head office, explained the situation and got my money back with 10 days. Very lucky. However, I removed my bank details from the Lazada web site and will only pay via COD now.

[snowgard]

Submit cases like this to the RTP's Cybercrime Unit. The regular police don't know how to deal with such cases. Banks automatically reject all cases if you don't have evidence.

 

https://sbpolice.go.th/en/contact/contact.html

or here

https://register.dsi.go.th/

[The Fugitive]

8 hours ago, snowgard said:

Submit cases like this to the RTP's Cybercrime Unit. The regular police don't know how to deal with such cases. Banks automatically reject all cases if you don't have evidence.

 

https://sbpolice.go.th/en/contact/contact.html

or here

https://register.dsi.go.th/

Very helpful, thank you.

[The Fugitive]

18 hours ago, Surasak said:

I had something similar happen to me some time ago. I don't normally give my card details to be stored for future use, but having used Lazada for a couple of years, one item could only be bought with payment from a bank card. Duly paid and no problems for a few months then all of a sudden 27,000baht disappeared from my Thai bank. Checked at the local bank and got a statement and a payment of the said amount had been deducted by, of all places, Deliveroo in the UK. There had been two deductions and two additions of 32baht to the A/C prior to the 27,000 deduction. I contacted the bank head office, explained the situation and got my money back with 10 days. Very lucky. However, I removed my bank details from the Lazada web site and will only pay via COD now.

Similar happened to me last year. However, it was using my stored UK credit card on AliExpress. A test purchase for only six USD was made and the item delivered to an address in Moldova. I was too slow to stop this but thereafter cancelled my UK credit card and received reimbursement from my bank. It was afterwards entertaining watching the hackers load up the cart with selected items but being unable to pay. Fortunately, I only ever used/saved that one card.

[Jaggg88]

On 4/12/2023 at 8:05 AM, Eloquent pilgrim said:

Sad story, but why was he willing to transfer that amount just on a phone call request ??

 

Who in their right mind would transfer 400k into an unknown account on a phone call request, it doesn’t sound right somehow.

I have a transaction limit of 100k on my BBL account; if I want to pay for something that is more than that, I go to the bank with bank book and passport and make a transfer request or get a cashier cheque.

 

The cynic in me thinks that maybe the BIL is trying to scam his bank

The way the scam works is they inform the target that there has been suspicious activity on their account and the bank want him to transfer funds to a safe secure account while they investigate. It's become a worldwide common scam. UK banks will not let you transfer large sums now without confirming why and they do block transfers.

[Dan O]

The sad part of this whole scamming thing in the Asian banking is the money can be traced each step of the way from 1 bank to the next all the way to the ending account. Unfortunately nothing is ever done and seldom if ever retrieved. Sure there may be times when it gets withdrawn but the individual can be identified although seldom prosecuted. 

 

Some banks are adding notices to their sites but I thi k the govt, banking and media really could do a much better job at mass marketing this issue including explaining that these types of calls are Never I initiated by the govt, the banks or any other agency requesting immediate transfers via phone or bank transfers

Edited April 16, 2023 by Dan O
Spelling