PPP Instigates Recovery of £17,000 for Wokingham Fraud Victim
Our Fraud Victim Support Officer has been tirelessly pursuing a claim on behalf of a 61 year old Wokingham resident who was scammed out of £17,000 over two years ago.
The scam involved criminals on his doorstep posing as council workers. They told the victim that there was necessary work to be done on his drains which were causing the neighbours problems. Later the same day he received a phone call from the ‘police’ telling him that the workers were legitimate. This call was also from the scammers. After the call reassured him the callers were who they said they were he transferred £17,000 to the criminal’s bank account.
PPP challenged the bank saying they had not abided by the banking protocol. The bank at this stage denied any wrong-doing. PPP, via our Fraud victim Support Officer, took this to the banking ombudsman. We have just learnt that the victim has received the full amount of £17,000 back, plus interest and £200 compensation.
Notes:
The Public Protection Partnership (PPP) is a shared service delivering Environmental Health, Licensing and Trading Standards to over 450,000 people and 10,000 businesses on behalf of three authorities (Partners), Bracknell Forest Council, West Berkshire Council and Wokingham Borough Council.
These services encompass a wide range of areas of responsibility from environmental protection to fair trading, food safety to animal health, housing standards to taxi licensing, and much more.
The priorities of the PPP are:
- community protection
- protecting and improving health
- protection of the environment
- supporting prosperity and economic growth
- effective and improving service delivery and
- partnership working.
The Banking Protocol - is an industry-wide initiative, developed by UK Finance in partnership with National Trading Standards, it trains bank branch staff to spot when someone is about to fall victim to a scam and try to prevent them from withdrawing cash to give to a fraudster. After this the staff can request an immediate police response to the branch to investigate the suspected fraud and catch those responsible. https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/news-and-insight/blogs/why-banking-protocol-matters
