‘I lost £85k to romance scam – banks must do more’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4vd53vkygo

Posted by tyw7

35 comments

  1. It is not the bank’s fault that you are an idiot.

  3. Ffs, going to get health warnings on bank notes next hahaha. The guy needs basic IT training more like

  4. When your peioritise your dick over your well being.

    Banks done nothing wrong.

  5. My bank asked me about 10 times if I was 100% super duper sure that I wanted to move 5 figures into an ISA.

    I don’t feel sorry for these *men* at all lol.

  6. People must be more accountable for their own stupid actions. To send money to someone in another country is you’ve never met is idiotic.

    Banks shouldn’t have the job of stopping people like this.

  7. I’m not a fan of banks but honestly, what else was the bank meant to do here?

    Did common sense not enter the picture at any point?

  8. People also need to try and not be fucking idiots.

  11. Why? Banks DO ask you to verify payment before you hit send. His own fault for not practicing due diligence

  12. What more could they possibly do?

    It’s already a massive pain to transfer money. They ask why you’re sending it every single time.

    I want access to my money, I don’t want it limited because some old people can’t think anymore.

  13. Does he offer suggestions as to how to stop people who refuse to believe they are being scammed from being scammed? If the bank blocked his account, he’d be complaining.

  15. NO.

    Banks already do enough online, I get pestered enough when I’m trying to pay a new tradesman for some work.

    Perhaps a good compromise is for people like him is that they should have to go into a branch to make any bank transfers and they can ask why he is sending “Anita” £££.

  16. If you lose this much money to what is so obviously a scam (a very common too), then you deserve it quite frankly

  17. Why is it the banks fault that people send money to others they don’t know. Baffles me.

  18. These guys are the reason you need to answer 10 questions, verify 2 codes and have a phone call before sending a tenner to your mates account

  19. I can’t even spend £50 on vapes online without my bank sending me fraud warnings. Stupid people playing stupid games winning stupid prizes

  20. >One of his banks, Halifax, said it had “a great deal of sympathy” for Mr Lodge but had warned him about the payments he was making.

    The bank even warned him but he still did it anyway and then tried to blame them. I have sympathy for him but this problem is entirely of his own making.

  21. Banks will show more than one message asking if you’ve checked everything and if you are sure you are not being scammed. They can’t force horny sad people to not give their money away.

  22. I bet this guy has moaned about the ‘nanny state’ at least once in his life.

  23. Not sure what more a bank can do other than warn people, which it sounds like they did.

    Don’t agree with the harsh judgements of this guy though. He’s lost his wife and is old and lonely. There is such a thing as being vulnerable to manipulation.

    Of course, if you’re not over-furnished in the brain department it’s easier to just bash out a generic DiRtY oLd MaN wAs ThInKiNg WiTh hIs WiLlY hUr Hur response.

  24. There are people with 80 IQ and less walking around us as normal people.

    Half of the population is smarter than average but what about the other half that is slower than average?

  25. Maybe banks need to do phishing email tests on their members.. just like ‘corporate IT/HR’ do to check people are following the rules, or just idiots.

    Use LLMs pretending to be potential romantic partners, and try to persuade them to send money.. then give them a “THIS WAS A TEST, DON’T SEND PEOPLE YOU’VE NEVER MET ALL YOUR MONEY” message and mark their account for special monitoring.

    Or.. can banks find a way to identify people more at risk for these scams through mining their spending habits?

  27. If the bank did more to protect him he would be in a branch shouting loudly about them treating him badly. It’s always someone else’s fault. I don’t see why the public at large should recompense him for his stupidity. He was warned but went ahead anyway

  28. Dude tried to move to another country to be with a woman he never met before?

  29. There are warnings in place. If the bank had quizzed him on the transfers he’d have got pissed off and demanded they allow it. Maybe try to think with the right head next time mate…

  30. The measures banks have in place already should be enough. They can’t help idiocy. Same people saying banks should do more are the first to moan when they have to ring the bank up because their large legitimate transfer to buy a car etc etc has been blocked.

  31. I used to help an older chap when his PC went wrong

    Over time I started to suspect he was being scammed as he talked about helping people by sending them money a lot 

    I don’t like to get involved with things like PayPal but he had a problem and it was obvious from the front page summary that chunks of cash were going out to what appeared to be random individuals 

    We resecured his passwords etc. and things went quiet….

    I’ve since found out he sold his house to one of those companies who let you stay in it until you die and he’s been spending the money on “escorts” the whole time 

    I can’t say I’m not impressed as he’s 86 but his daughter is not so happy….

  32. Having worked in a bank, this man was asked multiple times what he was paying for and multiple times he lied.
    The amount and frequency of these payments would have triggered multiple alerts.

  33. This man and every other idiot like him deserves to lose every penny if they’re dumb to not only fall for an obvious scam, but to ignore multiple warnings.

    As a society can we please just stop molly coddling stupid people. Take the instructions away and let the problem sort itself out.

  34. At the time, the bank could have said ‘are you sure you know where this money is going?’ and ‘are you sure this isn’t a scam?’ And I bet he would have replied yes to both questions.

    Cue compoface/shocked pikachu face.

    The line should be, “man sinks all his money and regrets it, blaming everyone but himself”

  35. It’s a pretty sad story but the Banks are right tbh.

    He sent £85,000 to a woman in a foreign country he had never met, never even seen in person, it’s not even confirmed he had even spoken to her on the phone, to move to Kenya with her.

    The banks said they warned him that it could be fraud, which they probably did with all the pop ups that appear saying “are you sure this isn’t fraud?” When you try and move those amount of money, and he told them “no it’s not fraud” and sent it anyway.

    In the article his defense of the whole thing is “the banks have been mean to me by not replacing the money”. He’s not even a vulnerable person who needs extra protection, and he doesn’t say that he is.

    What are banks actually meant to do in this situation? Just replace tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds consequence free whenever someone makes bad life choices?

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