THE Metropolitan Police are hunting a fraud gang after £50,000 vanished from the bank account of a north-east haulage firm.
Police Scotland are working with their London counterparts after two large amounts of money were transferred from Dyce-based RA Executive Freight.
Boss Richard Allan said last night his business had been left devastated by the theft – and criticised the Royal Bank of Scotland for trying to switch the blame on to him. It is understood he may have been the victim of a scam in which someone pretending to be from the bank phoned up and tricked a member of staff into disclosing crucial account details.
But Mr Allan is adamant that no one at his company would have fallen for such a trick.
Fraud losses on UK accounts have jumped by almost a fifth year-on-year as improvements in technology are driving criminals to target consumers directly with deception crimes.
One example of the growth in con tricks to get hold of card details is a telephone scam called “vishing”, which involves someone posing as a bank fraud investigation officer or a police officer in an attempt to get their victim to hand over information such as their Pin code and date of birth.
“Someone with an Irish accent claiming to be from the Royal Bank of Scotland called and spoke to a woman in the office before leaving her on hold,” Mr Allan said.
“But she became suspicious about this and hung up.
“The bank say that we must have accidentally given someone our details, which would be a breach of our contract with them.
“But I have known these ladies for a long time and I know that they would not have given any details away.
“They phoned me up straight away and I made people aware that there would be no money coming out of our account that day.”
But before the day – September 4 – ended, two transactions were made.
First, £9,999.99 was taken out, then moments later another transaction – this time taking £39,999.99.
Mr Allan added: “The police said the money had been transferred to a Barclays in West Ham.
“The Metropolitan Police have been investigating, but I don’t think it is very high up their list of priorities.”
Mr Allan has had his overdraft extended as he tries to claw the cash back, but admits it is having a big impact on his business.
He added: “I don’t know what else I can do.”
A spokeswoman for Police Scotland confirmed that inquiries were “ongoing”.
An RBS spokeswoman said the bank was unable to comment at short notice as it needed written permission from Mr Allan to comment on the case.
Some £216.1million worth of frauds were committed on credit and debit cards in the first six months of this year, a 17% rise compared with the first half of 2012, as conmen turn their attention to duping cardholders themselves, according to Financial Fraud Action UK, which works to prevent crime on behalf of the financial services industry.
The industry body said improvements to card security such as chip and Pin and better fraud detection practices by banks such as monitoring unusual spending had prompted a growth in more old-fashioned attempts to trick people into simply handing over their personal details.
Within the half-yearly total, card identity theft rose by almost a quarter (24%) compared with the same period a year ago, with £18.1million worth of losses due to this type of crime.
Types of fraud where the card holder is not present, such as when purchases are made over the phone, online or by mail order, also saw a 23% year-on-year rise, with £142million worth of losses recorded.