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| Cyber warrior John Siddle |
This is cyber warrior
John Siddle, his weapon, his computer. The battle! Conning the conmen who are
out to rob innocent victims of thousands! By day Julian Siddle is an HGV mechanic. But in his free time he leads a
very different life, as part of a group of volunteers engaged in a citizen
fight back against online fraudsters: hunting them down, exposing them and
freezing the flow of money into their accounts. This weekend he will be hunched
in front of his computer, trying to con the conmen out of their own bank
account details and then making the banks shut the accounts down. The group,
all volunteers who offer legal advice to the public via a consumer rights
website, LeagleBeagles.info, spend
much of their spare time “baiting the scamsters”.
They claim to be gathering and reporting up to 10 accounts a week to the
banks’ fraud departments, and claim a 100% success rate in reporting those that
are being used for nefarious purposes. Thanks to their actions, the accounts are
usually quickly closed down, denying the fraudster a chance to use them to
launder victims’ money. In recent weeks Guardian Money has revealed how online
fraudsters have been raking in millions of pounds by operating
highly-sophisticated bank account and holiday home scams, with some victims
losing life-changing sums as much as £80,000. Siddle told Money this week that,
bank accounts are being sold on the “dark web” for two or three bitcoins
(£500-£750), depending on access levels and withdrawal limits. He also
claims there is growing evidence that some migrant workers returning to Eastern
Europe are selling their legitimately-opened UK accounts to the highest bidder.
An unassuming man in his 40s, Siddle shies away from the idea that he is a
modern-day hero, stressing he is just part of a bigger team. He says he works
in tandem with colleagues at similar sites Scamwarners.com and 419eaters.com
whom he says are “pivotal”. Most of the volunteers behind the fight back are
keen to remain anonymous, in part because they have received personal threats
from the fraudsters. Siddle says they were shocked into action by the number of
people posting their experiences on the LegalBeagles website.
Founded in 2007, this is a free forum offering advice and information on a
variety of consumer issues. Many had lost life savings and, in at least one
case, a victim had killed himself. Currently, the group is focused on East
European gangs who have been very successfully conning people into buying used
cars on sites such as eBay, Gumtree and Auto Trader. While this in itself is
not new, the fraudsters are now creating sophisticated copycat websites of
legitimate listings, especially those on eBay. The fraudster poses as the
seller and persuades the buyers to transfer the cost of the vehicle typically
between £3,000 and £8,000 to what they are led to believe is a safe “escrow”
(holding) account at a mainstream bank. In fact, the fraudster has simply
hacked into the emails or accounts of the legitimate seller, or created fake
web pages. The buyer receives a reply after using the “contact us” function,
giving them the confidence that they are dealing with a genuine company. After
being lured in, buyers are given a range of excuses as to why they cannot come
to see the car; instead, they are told it will be delivered to their door. Only
if the buyer is happy with the car will the funds be released. The reality is
that the cars are never delivered and the “holding account” is emptied within
two hours, leaving the consumer defrauded and with no redress. Siddle says
there were 3,500 known victims last year, who collectively lost £17.8m but he
suspects the real number is much higher. “Last weekend around 300 car
advertisements on the web were tampered with and our group sets out to
find them. Once you know what you are doing they are actually quite easy to
spot, and we then contact the person selling the car pretending to be an
interested buyer.” Siddle and his colleagues ask all the typical questions that
a buyer would ask, and agree to purchase the vehicle. At this point the
scamsters will typically email details of the bank account into which they want
the money paid.
The aim is to take up as much of
the fraudsters’ time as possible partly to stop real victims from handing over
their money. “In one case, I managed to get them to hand over the sort codes and
numbers of six different bank accounts. We are facing an uphill battle, but we
do what we can. I suspect the fraudsters have thousands of accounts just
waiting to be used.” Siddle says it took some time for the banks to trust the
group, but in many cases it now has a direct line for reporting incidents to
the fraud departments. But if Siddle can track down the scamsters, why aren’t
the banks or the police doing more? “The problem is that the banks aren’t being
held responsible and because they are not losing the money, they are not very
interested in resolving it. Generally, only losses of more than £10,000 are
reported to the police. The scamsters know this, and keep each separate fraud
to below this figure.” He is critical of the way victims are told to report
matters to Action Fraud or “Inaction Fraud”, as his group calls it to which
victims are all told to go. “They think that something immediate will be done
with that information, but, misleadingly, it is rarely used for anything other
than statistics and data.” He has also questioned the role of prosecutors.
Victims were recently told that one group of alleged fraudsters were arrested
and later charged, but simply disappeared after being let out on bail. Gary
Miles, head of the fraud squad at the Metropolitan police, told Money this week
that various scams covered in these pages are being taken seriously. He said
his team is examining 3,500 victim files as part of Operation Ranavarma, and
that arrests have resulted. “There are a number of groups operating the types
of frauds that you describe, and we continue to analyse the data coming in from
Action Fraud and others to establish patterns and further lines of inquiry.” He
says his team has proactively been in contact with “all the banks” as well as the
businesses whose customers have been targeted, to examine what measures can be
put in place to disrupt and prevent more offences. “Victims can be assured that
their stories are being heard and all available action is being taken, but the
international nature of these crimes means they are not solved overnight.”
Meanwhile, Siddle is keen to reiterate the long-held advice to buyers not to
hand over any money in any form unless they are physically looking at the car.
“They are very good at what they do, and they’ll give all sorts of reasons why
you can’t come and see it. But if a seller can’t show you the actual car he’s
selling, always walk away and find another who will,” he says.
Barclays
targeted
Some weeks ago Guardian Money highlighted an action group’s claims that
Barclays was the number one choice of fraudsters targeting users of the Owners
Direct and HomeAway websites. Now another group of campaigners has alleged
Barclays accounts are also overwhelmingly being used to launder money by those
carrying out the vehicle purchase fraud, highlighted here. The LegalBeagles
recently told the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills that while
“each and every UK bank is affected” by this issue, Barclays Bank is
“predominantly the bank of choice for fraudulent accounts, particularly in and
around the London area”. It provided BIS with a list of accounts they had
captured. Out of the 97 reported to BIS, 80 were Barclays. Money has already
told how more than 90% of those who had fallen for the Owners Direct scam had
paid the money into a Barclays account. However, the bank continues to deny
liability. “This needs investigation to see if there are any differences or
failings to verify identities on account opening (at Barclays), operating and
monitoring procedures, or if any patterns of insider activity is enabling this
to happen,” the LegalBeagles’ document stated. The group said that at all the
major banks not just Barclays procedures relating to account opening, operating
and monitoring “are questionable, particularly CDD [customer due diligence]
checks, KYC [know your customer] monitoring and document fraud/checks when
first opening accounts, as is their responsibility under anti-money laundering
regulations”. Unlike some other banks, Barclays accepts foreign passports or
driving licences from anywhere in the world as ID, although a UK address is
required. Barclays says it “takes any scam issues very seriously. We want to
eliminate the use of Barclays accounts for scams and appreciate any information
provided to us to assist with this. “Barclays does not open accounts with
dubious ID or inadequate verification. We have robust identity and verification
processes in place, complying with all regulatory requirements. We are
committed to ongoing improvements to our processes and technology to support
this.”
Culled from Guardian
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