Scam going around getting Victims to sign up to Monzo

Whilst I don’t usually agree with vigilantism, I’m sure he researched what he can and can’t record and publish; and he does it knowing all the implications

If the victim was gullible enough to fall victim of a “NCA investigator” with an English name but a heavy Indian accent and broken English, there is no harm in using similar tactics to try and prevent them handing over all their money. Or would you rather see more people lose 10s of thousands (which Monzo/other banks might have to reimburse out of pocket)? If he called and laid the facts out straight, the victims would believe the actual scammers in that he’s the scammer.

He also hands all the details over to police forces so surely he’d get a slap on the wrist if it wasn’t ok

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Watch some of his other video’s, usually indian scammers. He doesn’t usually pretend to be from the bank, he usually calls the victims to notify them of the scam, unsure why he chose to be from Monzo on this one.

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Let’s not engage in whataboutery. I’d rather not anyone be a victim of fraud (or, as the cool kids say, frauded) but as a society we have to choose who to police bad stuff. That’s the (genuine) NCA. If that’s not working then there’s a cause for reform - not for every amateur online detective to have a pop.

We don’t know the details here, but I would have thought a more responsible course of action would be to call the (UK) police, Lloyds Bank or Monzo immediately. Instead, he appears to have deliberately misled the victim. Now, you can debate the philosophy of ends justifying their means all you want - but I’d rather have clear rules and commonly understood legislation, rather than someone (literally) making it up as they go along.

This video suggests he gave the evidence to the local Indian police, not the NCA or a territorial UK force. So I don’t think there was the opportunity for a ‘slap on the wrist’.

I’m also a bit concerned that he has a patreon running. Is he literally profiting out of his vigilantism?

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I’d rather nobody falls victim of scams either, but the sad reality is that they do. And when they do, lengthy investigations ensue, often without too many results. If you have the time and power to stop it, why not?

He would need to have the victim notify the police or the NCA, file a crime report and get them to investigate which would take weeks/months and it might not get treated as a priority until the victim’s money is long gone. I think it’s better to intervene and stop it as long as he knows the legal limitations and acts within them. No harm done to anyone.

He seems to have worked with the BBC (or at least provided material for their investigation) which lead to actual arrests. Scam call centre owner in custody after BBC investigation Scam call centre owner in custody after BBC investigation - BBC News

If he does this full time (which from the videos it certainly seems so), he will need an income stream. Otherwise there’s no way he could do it

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Edit: @ndrw beat me to it :smiley:!

The problem with the police investigating this is that they don’t have the manpower to stop it. Jim Browning has done work with BBC’s Panorama so whilst his actions an be said to be vigilantism, he is known for genuinely highlighting and awareness these issues with the public in the hope that it is dealt with better.

He gives the details to the Indian police because that is where the crime is committed and it is only them who can stop it. He does contact local (UK or US) police as he mentions it on different videos in passing.

Here is the BBC Stories about it.

BBC Panorama Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9LUS2F1cA

BBC Article

Here is the start of the Panorama series from Jim Brownings point of view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le71yVPh4uk

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I think that’s my point. It makes me deeply uneasy that this is his “job”.

depending on the amount of money at stake that it could explain his behaviour… Or you could just ask him via Twitter why he impersonated a Monzo employee.
Also as side note the police the NCA etc. won’t really stop these scammers or individuals. Education will or Monzo developing better online tools. Its a constant battle and will remain so

If you watch the video in full, you’ll see earlier attempts to stop the customer didn’t work. Pretending to be from Monzo was an attempt to get through to the customer before she lost a life changing amount of money.

These scams are often high pressure, and time sensitive as they always include a call to action - if you don’t do this now, x y z will happen. Reporting it to the police would have done nothing to help this customer as their money would be long gone. (And it’s worth noting that Jim states he always reports it to the local police, and that they have thus far done nothing.)

These scams work because people don’t recognise them to be scams, and usually involve significant sums. I believe it absolutely essential that content such as this is made available, because people need to be able to recognise this type of thing.

I myself had a number of calls from an HMRC type scam at the start of lockdown, where they attempted to tell me I owed a massive sum and was going to be arrested. Every time I asked questions, it eventually led to the phone being put down on me. Odd - I thought I owed money?! Eventually they took me off the call list. I’d never fall for any of these scams but unfortunately so many do, and I agree with raising awareness wherever possible.

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Come on!! Lol

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Whatever happened to hanging up and calling the number on the back of your card :man_facepalming:t3:

There’s so many reasons to be suspicious it’s mind boggling.

I for one would love to receive one of these phone calls, just to lead them down the garden path for a few hours

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By the time the police do anything, the money will be long gone. And I think it’s fairly common knowledge that Monzo prefer to disconnect calls than answer them.

I think in the heat of that particular moment, he made the right call. Scammers can be very convincing, and sometimes to counter their tactics, you have to use them yourself, even if it means traversing grey areas of the law. It does my heart good to know that folks like him are out there. I see what he does as a very similar thing to all those white hat infosec researchers cashing in on bug bounty programs to keep the rest of us safe from bad actors.

In certain situations you need good folks willing to go outside the rule of law to counter the bad ones.

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I’ve not watched the video but hanging up is no good if they phone your landline. They can keep the line open and then pretend they’re Monzo after you’ve dialled the number on the back of the card

Different from a mobile I suppose as you know the last call was terminated anyways.

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This isn’t as true as it used to be.

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Not necessarily true that article, I actually did it to my mum the other day by mistake and it was at least 2 minutes not the few seconds

It might well vary but exchange and by provider, I suppose.

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Which seems incompetent at actually stopping the problem. If the NCA or whoever it is did their job right (and/or was given the resources to do so) we wouldn’t be having these discussions nor would videos like these be published. I had my fair share of scam/fraud attempts and reporting them is a waste of time; when it comes to Action Fraud it seems like unless you’ve actually fallen for the scam you can’t even report it to begin with - there is no way to report an attempt.

call the (UK) police, Lloyds Bank or Monzo immediately

So what the police do? Even assuming everyone is cooperating and doing their best, it’s likely to take at least one day for the accounts involved to be closed; these scammers can move the money into an irrecoverable form (cash, crypto, etc) in minutes.

Speaking of calling Monzo specifically, I tried reporting a Monzo account number involved in an HMRC scam call; I had to brute-force my way through the IVR (most paths just tell me to chat and hang up) and eventually wait 10 minutes in a queue before being able to talk to a human, and obviously for data protection reasons he couldn’t really tell me much, so I’m not sure how much money this particular account had already laundered and whether the account was even closed immediately following my report or left open longer for the next victim to transfer their money into (in my case they asked for several thousands).

He seems to have worked with the BBC (or at least provided material for their investigation) which lead to actual arrests

Call me cynical but the only reason something was done is because that particular case had media attention. In other videos of his he explicitly mentions reporting other scams to the Indian police and never hears back (or the contact form doesn’t even work).

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This was a scary video to watch. Hopefully Monzo can work with other banks and Apple/Google to find ways to prevent screen sharing during the sign-up process to protect potential victims.

you’ll know you’re through to the real bank when they make you hold for 5-10 minutes :smiley:

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Before hanging up

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I’ve personally never had to call Monzo - but i’ve heard many stories of customer being hung up on after waiting in some cases hours to get through