A grandfather-of-five has told how he felt let down by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) after losing £250,000 in a scam,
Raymond Lumsden, 71, a retired Edinburgh businessman, thought he was transfering money to a savings account of Royal Banks Of Scotland Investments (RBSI).
He said he was reduced to tears when he learned he had been tricked by scammers.
“Tears were in my eyes, because I was thinking ‘they’ve taken the kids’ money’,” he said. “I’ve never felt so bad in my whole life.”
“It had a terrible impact on me, and I’m still recovering. I went to the doctor because my nerves were torn.”
But while he described the “horrible” fraudsters as the principal villains, he also laid the blame at the door of the RBS, who he says failed to carry out proper checks before transferring the money to the criminals’ account.
“Nobody in the branch ever said to me ‘are you sure this isn’t a scam?’,” he said.
The bank has since refunded more than £207,000 of the money lost, in three separate payments, leaving Mr Lumsden more than £42,000 out of pocket.
When RBS refused to repay any more, he enlisted the help of National Fraud Helpline solicitors to recover the remaining cash.
Fiona Bresnen, a lawyer at National Fraud Helpline solicitors, said: “Mr Lumsden informed staff in the bank that he’d been told he needed to send the money to a compliance solicitor’s account at RBS International rather than directly to the bank itself. This should have raised an immediate red flag.
“Staff in the bank should have known there is no need for money to be sent to a bank’s solicitor rather than to the actual intended bank account. Raymond had checked with staff if this was the correct procedure and was reassured that it was fine. He even showed bank staff the email exchanges which mentioned the compliance solicitor but was told that it was okay to transfer the money.
“On this basis we believe that he should be entitled to a full refund.”
The law firm is now representing Mr Lumsden for a claim that is currently being investigated by the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Mr Lumsden’s nightmare began in January when he saw an advert on Facebook supposedly from RBSI offering returns on investment of up to 15 per cent.
With interest rates on his existing RBS savings account reducing, he filled in his details and was contacted by someone claiming to be from RBSI, who proposed an investment with an 11 per cent interest rate, to be handled by his colleague in Jersey.
Mr Lumsden received official-looking documentation by email, and even checked out the identities of the two RBSI staff members online.
He said: “It came up with his picture, the same picture I’d received on the email, and he worked for RBSI, so I thought ‘this is brilliant, it’s definitely not a scam’. I’d made up my mind to invest.
“There was never a doubt in my mind I was dealing with a legitimate Royal Bank employee.”
He went into his nearest RBS branch in Corstorphine, Edinburgh, and asked to transfer the money “from RBS to an RBSI account”.
Mr Lumsden showed someone from the bank his my phone with the email from a man claiming to represent RBSI.
But it was someone pretending to be a genuine RBSI worker.
Thee money was then not transferred to an RBSI account, but to a Halifax Bank account.
“If he or the manager who rubber stamped it had said to me ‘do you realise you’re paying this into a building society in the middle of England?’ I’d have said ‘woah, stop now’,” he said. “That’s why I’m very angry with the Royal Bank. I thought it was fine because the bank would check it all out and I’d have security.”
Mr Lumsden, a father-of-four, was given access to a fake RBSI online portal where he could track his investment.
But his world fell apart about a month later when he was contacted by the RBS fraud team, who told him he may have been scammed.
He refused to believe it, until an employee of RBSI based in Jersey called him a few days later, and confirmed he had fallen victim to a convincing fraud.
“I was absolutely shocked, I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “They told me someone had cloned [the RBSI worker]. You could have knocked me over with a feather.”
Despite receiving most of his money back, Mr Lumsden feels that if even the most basic checks had been carried out, he would not have lost any cash at all.
“I’ve been with the Royal Bank for more than 40 years, and I totally trusted them,” he added.
He now hopes that National Fraud Helpline solicitors will help him recover the rest of his money.
“It would mean the word to me (to get it back), because I just want to make sure there’s money there for the kids,” he said. “It upsets me a lot because all I was trying to do was make them more money, and now it looks as though I’ve lost their money.”
Mr Lumsdens story appeared in a variety of media outlets. Read one of the stories here: Heartbroken grandad loses £250k in RBS scam as fraudsters pose as staff
Have you lost money to an investment scam? Contact National Fraud Helpline. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our Claim Form.