Forum Moderators: buckworks
I was recently a victim of fraud via wire transfer. I sent the money over seas to have the person i thought was credible vanish.
I have 2 main bank accounts that were left behind. An HSBC bank account with full details and a smaller local bank with full details.
Can a reverse wire be performed? Please enlighten me. Thanks so much.
Paolo from Toronto
Whats to say that the money is still in the account anyway?
thanks again
paolo
You think your bank will do this from their own funds?Jessh!
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What does this mean?
"I have 2 main bank accounts that were left behind. An HSBC bank account with full details and a smaller local bank with full details.
A wire transfer has nothing to do with Visa's policies.
Most likely the "overseas" account was opened with phony identification. The crook probably put some money IN the bank first. Under that situation, the bank isn't going to ask many questions.
And what are you going to do even if you positively know who the culprit is....if he lives in Africa, much of E. Europe, most of Asia etc?
You should have thought of that first!
If it is fraud, you can assume that he has already withdrawn all the money and a chargeback would not be possible. You will have to pursue other means
I'm not sure where any recovery is due you since you authorized the transfer yourself, it's not like you were the victim of an unauthorized ACH transaction, it's not the banks fault. If it's a real fraud the likelihood of recovering anything from his account are highly unlikely as he probably cashed out and closed the account right away and moved on.
If the authorities will help you catch him, that's probably your best bet.
Why would you wire transfer $1,000 to Indonesia?
So they could steal it, why else?
In the USA, bank wires can be returned (charged back) in the first two months
Seems there's no safe way to get payment from a US buyer. Very good for honest sellers to know. *sigh*
In most European countries (not UK) cheques are virtually no longer used and to get back money transferred by wire you need a court ruling establishing it was indeed fraud. At least I've never heard of any other way to do it. Of course the bank can do the reverse if the sender typed the wrong account number and the recipient agrees that the money doesn't belong to him. But then the name of the recipient will not match either.
Does the bank manager take out his own wallet and reimburse you from his own pay? Where does the money come from if the destination account has been emptied, which is almost certainly the case?
Jeesh, I hope our USA banks aren't as stupid as a few online merchants. Wiring money to someone you don't know in Indoesnia (or Nigeria) goes way beyond the term "Error" or even "Fraud." It's more like making a gift to the crook, LOL!
You betcha! The reality IS harsh, and not just for him.
FACT: Almost definitely, a bank isn't going to help you get your money back from Indonesia.
Fraud causes problems for all of us. Our email and shopping cart are clogged with fraud attempts from Nigeria and Indonesia because a tiny number of people fall for scams that are utterly transparent to anyone with a molecule of sense. People are shying away from conducting business online because of scams that most of us would never fall for. This guy isn't the only victim of his naiveté.
But, I do have some sympathy here. I've come very close to ordering some stock from overseas (India), but decided against it because I was worried about this very thing. My volume justifies going to the source, and the money I stood to save would be great, but I didn't want to take the chance.
Maybe some of you that do import could use this, or another, thread to share some information. Besides ignoring the obvious countries like Nigeria, Indonesia, and the like, is there anyway to check out a company you want to buy from? Even if you're careful about the country, there's always a chance that the company is scamming.
Regarding buying from India I believe Rachel's conclusion was correct. It would be cheaper to buy directly and the Indians would then earn better, but the risk is great. I'm in Europe but that's the common view here too.
The profit has to be huge to cover the possible losses resulting from e.g. not getting the merchandise exactly as ordered and expected. The middlemen in America/Europe can use documentary credit etc., and they know their suppliers. There are, after all, companies that know the tricks how to import even from Nigeria and Indonesia.
So when Americans are reluctant to send money to certain countries I'm worried about receiving payments from US. But I trust these my concerns are unfounded.
I first found out the equivalent of the Better Business Bureau in their city in India and sent them a letter denouncing the company as a fraud, cc'ing the offending company. But what actually worked was my phony website about them. Let us just say the name of the offenders was indianwidgets.com. I told them I had bought the domain indianwidgetsarethieves.com (I actually had not) and would put up a website in their honor and submit it to all the search engines and that every time any search was done for them, the thief site would also come up, and they would look like the skeeves and losers they were. I also told them I would notify the US Treasury Department that they were engaging in wire fraud, which is fine as long as they stay in India, but the next time they wanted to come to a trade show in US, they would find out they could get a nice long visa to visit our penal system.
They then pretended it was all a big mistake and sent me my stuff right away. Later they went out of business.
Threatening to put up a website outlining a company's thievery also worked with an American company that cheated me out of $17.00 and refused to respond to a Better Business Bureau complaint.
So there are things you can do.
What we did before our first purchase was to make an appointment to visit their factory. We only placed an order once we were satisfied. So far things have gone alright. However a couple of weeks ago, we learnt that the salesman who have been dealing with us had been fired because he was asking his customers to wire money into his personal account. I suppose we have been luckly so far.......
