An Essex arable farmer who was duped in an elaborate tractor buying scam managed to recover £24,000 last week.
Richard Bennett, 61, who farms just outside Brentwood, lost nearly £30,000 when he tried to buy a John Deere tractor online.
The farmer thought he was transferring the money to a legitimate dealership in France, having seen the tractor for sale on a farm machinery website.
But when the vehicle repeatedly failed to arrive and he sent someone to France to collect it, he realised he had fallen victim to a sophisticated fraud that involved criminals cloning a real website.
The father-of-two said: “It was a big hit to my business, at a time when we are really struggling. You can’t just make up £30,000.”
During the tractor scam, Richard transferred the money to the fake dealer at the Brentwood branch of HSBC back in January 2020.
After HSBC refused to refund his money, Richard contacted National Fraud Helpline solicitors to try to recover his money from the bank, who have obligations from regulators to help protect their customers from fraud.
The law firm managed to secure Richard a settlement of £22,289.90 last week, and he is considering asking them to apply to the Financial Ombudsman Service to recover the remaining amount.
“It’s brilliant to get the money back,” he said. “I had written that money off, and it will be a tremendous help. It will help the bank balance and give us some peace of mind to keep us going.”
Skye Stockings, a lawyer at National Fraud Helpline, said: “We’re delighted to be able to recover this money for Richard.
“This was a sophisticated scam that we are sure more farmers will have fallen foul of. We’re aware that there’s a big problem with farm machinery scams.
“Many businesses, including farms, are unaware that there is an ability to claim back money lost to fraud via their banks.
“Fraud in the UK rose by more than a third last year and the advent of AI makes it harder to spot. A lot of legitimate adverts are also being cloned. All businesses are incredibly vulnerable to scams.”
Richard had been looking for a John Deere 6430 to help with tedding the harvested hay for a couple of years when he saw one for sale on the farm machinery website.
“They are few and far between, and I’d been outbid on them at auctions,” he said. “This one looked like the right money, and it was being sold by a genuine firm.
“I went on Google and clicked on the website, and it looked like a proper company website with millions of pounds worth of stock.”
He thought he was talking to one of the owners of the dealership, but when the tractor failed to arrive more than once, he asked a friend to travel to France to collect the vehicle.
To make matters worse, a Case tractor had just been stolen from his land, making the purchase even more pressing.
“My friend went there with a copy of the invoice and said they’d come to pick up a tractor,” said Richard. “And the people at the dealership said they didn’t know anything about it.
“It’s a family firm, and the lady there ended up in tears over it. They had other copies of these fake invoices where other people had had the same problem.”
It transpired that the dealership’s website had been cloned, complete with all the correct branding, and hosted in Panama.
The French authorities investigated the tractor scam, as yet, Richard is not aware of any prosecutions being made.
To help keep his agricultural machinery safer from theft, Richard had borrowed money to build a secure storage facility.
But he had to dip into this fund to buy a different John Deere 6430, from a dealer near Oxford.
“Getting this money back will certainly help to get on with the building,” he added.
The story was picked up throughout the farming media including: Farmers Weekly; Farmers Guide; Farmers Guardian; Farming UK.
Find out more about Business Fraud and Scams.
