bank fraud - please help !

[potless1]

Bank Fraud Help ! hi, a friend of mine who is out of work at the moment was contacted by someone via email who said he was in Cyprus & gave a Company name & address in Cyprus of an offshore finance company, the guy was offering part time work which my friend gratefully looked into, the guy said he had agents all around the world & needed an agent in the Uk to help take payments & make payments each week with commision being £100 for each payment, the guy took my friends number & spoke to him a few times reagrding the job offer, the guy sent a contract agreement with the name of the Cypriot based company at the head of the contract which my friend duly signed together with his deatils including name & address & bank account details to accept payments.
About 3 weeks ago my friend received a phone call one morning saying to my friend his first bit of work is to withdraw £2900 which has been deposited into his account in cash & wait for instructions, my friend duly obliged & withdrew the cash & 30 mins later he receieved a call from the guy saying that he had sent an email with instructions on what to do next. My friend retrieved his email which gave an address in Lagos, Nigeria & collectors name & the money was to be sent via western union asap with my friend taking £100 for his commision & the western union fees from the £2900 which my friend did. All in all the whole process took less than 2 hours & my friend thought he had found a lucrative living which hopefully would have been 2 hours work each day mon - fri picking up £500 a week ! He did not hear from the guy who was supposedly in Cyprus & 4 weeks later the bank (Barclays) have frozen my friends account due to fraudulent activity & are asking him to pay back the £2900 as the money was sent from another account illegally, can Barclays do this ? surely it is Barclays who should look at their security process to stop this kind os thing happening. All my friend was doing was trying to earn a crust & in no was involved in the fraud except by being taken in by the guy with his part time lucrative work offer.
Please can someone advise on what he can & should do as he is now pooping himself...

[Guest]

Re: bank fraud - please help !

He was involved in fraud along with money laundering. Your friend had better hope that the police and Barclays believe his story or he could find himself in court and if convicted he could be sentenced to 14 years imprisonment and receive an unlimited fine.

I cannot see why you feel that Barclays need to improve security, yet your friend does not.

He needs to produce all emails and receipts and he had better hope that Barclays are in an understanding mood.

[WendyB]

Re: bank fraud - please help !

Thing is, stuff that sounds too good to be true usually is...... I have to ask, didn't your friend think there may possibly be anything dodgy going on here?? Cos I know I would. With the electronic wizardry available these days if someone wanted cash transferred between countries/people/whatever surely they would find a better way than asking someone who they don't know to take in shed loads of cash into their account then cash it and send it Western Union to Nigeria?? The Nigeria connection should have been a dead give away in the first place, and apart from that this is so obviously soemone up to no good, either ripping people off (money was sent from another account illegally) or money laundering. And although your friend was only unwittingly involved, involved he was, in that he accepted money into his account which had basically been stolen from somone else's account. Barclays have a duty to assist in the tracking down of criminals, thre;s obviously been an electronic trail left which has led to your friend, so Barclays have got to investigate. I would imagine freezing of accounts is standard procedure where suspected fraud and or money laundering is involved.

[potless1]

Re: bank fraud - please help !

he does have all emails which were sent to him because it was the first thing i said to him so hopefully barclays are understanding :help:

He was involved in fraud along with money laundering. Your friend had better hope that the police and Barclays believe his story or he could find himself in court and if convicted he could be sentenced to 14 years imprisonment and receive an unlimited fine.

I cannot see why you feel that Barclays need to improve security, yet your friend does not.

He needs to produce all emails and receipts and he had better hope that Barclays are in an understanding mood.

[natweststaffmember]

Re: bank fraud - please help !

I have answered you on another forum on the same question. The first time I read it all I can say was that your friend was very very naive. It is a pity he didn't tell you earlier on about this as I am sure you would have said the same as WendyB has said.