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I’ve been reading on reddit practically every day that someone gets robbed at knife point in London, forcing them to transfer all their money (including savings etc) to another account, assumingly criminal’s.
Is it actually happening? It sounds a bit unrealistic to me as the police can easily acccess the receiving account information in that case.
I wanted to ask the common wisdom in order to learn what to do under such circumstances.
I mean, is there a realistic chance to recover the monies under these circumstances?
If you really believe it’s an issue, one option is not to have the banking apps on your phone. That’s prob a little extreme so a slightly better alternative is not to hold much cash in accounts that be easily withdrawn from
I keep more of an eye on the news and I have never seen a report of this happening. It sounds a bit dubious, as it supposes that such a robbery would go unnoticed while the victim transferred all their money – and that’s if they could access their accounts that readily. I mean, most of my savings are in accounts that I need to at least log on to my laptop to access.
Post me a link, though!
As with any fraud of this type though, chances of recovering the money are very slim as it can be electronically spirited out of the country immediately.
What someone might think was a good wheeze though, would be to call the police (or their bank) and claim that a nasty robber had forced them to transfer all their money under duress. Such accounts quite often fall apart under questioning. Not meaning you, of course, but how reliable are these reddit types?!
When you say you want to learn what to do, do you mean in the act of being robbed, or afterwards!
If you really believe it’s an issue, one option is not to have the banking apps on your phone. That’s prob a little extreme so a slightly better alternative is not to hold much cash in accounts that be easily withdrawn from
I most certainly do not have any access to my savings from my phone.
I’d trust Reddit as much as GB News. Someone’s always got an agenda they’re trying to influence, particularly leading up to political election (one of the main Tory lines was that the Labour mayor of London was soft on crime).
It sounds like a complete nonsense – how hard is it to say you don’t have access to your online banking?
Here is an example
https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/s/XZEJK2Ypdz
Just an example. I’m not focusing on the particulars of this case
I’d trust Reddit as much as the Tory candidate for Mayor who used images of NEW YORK in one of her ads claiming it was London.
I am not sure.
At knife point they can easily unlock the phone with the victim’s face, check the phone for the banking apps, and finally unlock the banking apps with the face, too.
How can you say that you don’t have access while they hold your phone and “control” your face at knife point?Such crime isn’t limited to London! Nor the UK.
When I was a young teller on the bank counter, we had such a thing as a 7 day, 30 day, and a 90 day notice bank account.
I can’t help but wonder if many of the threats and scams would be mitigated simply by older and vulnerable people having a chunk of their “rainy day” savings in a simple notice account. Seven days is a good time to reflect on a conversation, it’s also too long for a knife carrying thug to wait.
I am not sure.
At knife point they can easily unlock the phone with the victim’s face, check the phone for the banking apps, and finally unlock the banking apps with the face, too.
How can you say that you don’t have access while they hold your phone and “control” your face at knife point?That’s how we accessed most of my late relative’s accounts when he had a stroke. But, I don’t do face recognition, I do fingerprint.
Way back in the 1980s, I lived on a narrow boat at Lisson Grove in London. After seeing a film at Baker Street, I became aware of three guys following me back. I crossed a road etc… but as I tried to unlock the gate to the towpath they appeared right at my side holding a rather large knife.
I, of course, gave them my wallet (and a nice fountain pen!) and they wanted to know my PIN and where the nearest cash machine was. Then they ran off. I found one of my fellow boaters with a mobile phone (they were bricks in those days), called the police and told them about the cash machine on Edgeware Road.
The police caught two of them. When it came to court, my experience was just one “to be taken into consideration”. Someone had been so frightened by them they had jumped out a second floor window. Me – well, I was working for a meat industry newspaper, and I knew how hard it is to stab (rathr than slash) a big chunk of meat (ie a human) with a large knife. So I was actually worried that these muppets really didn’t know what they were up to, and might kill me by accident!
So, it happens. And, sadly, small groups of certain people made me uneasy for quite a few years.
I had a good relationship with my bank manager. He listened to my tale, and said: all our tellers are told to just hand over the cash. You did the right thing. It is only money, and you are a good customer. And refunded the cash.
The police never returned the gold Parker pen that they had kept as evidence!
I am not sure.
At knife point they can easily unlock the phone with the victim’s face, check the phone for the banking apps, and finally unlock the banking apps with the face, too.
How can you say that you don’t have access while they hold your phone and “control” your face at knife point?That’s how we accessed most of my late relative’s accounts when he had a stroke. But, I don’t do face recognition, I do fingerprint.
Well, a knife can’t cut your face off to take away with them alongside your phone. A severed finger on the other hand….
I think the advice on running a low current account balance and holding money in savings accounts that aren’t app based is wise advice.
@can2, there is no mention of violence or weapons in the post you linked to. People use the term “rob” very loosely.
Having thought about this a bit more, both my main savings account providers require a “nominated” account set up for any transfers, and there are security checks if you want to add a new one.
I just can’t see many criminals thinking this is a workable idea. Fraudsters in the main want to have as little actual contact with their victims as possible.
Not knife crime per se but I’ve just had my phone snatched 3 days ago in East London and my car window smashed in Knightsbridge in January.
Fortunate in a way its merely financial loss and inconvenience rather than a guest in A&E.I’ve lost the right to buy nice things since having 2 kids 5 years ago so am a no bling 50 shades of black T shirt kind of man and generally mindful of my surroundings.
Learnt to never save actual passwords on the phone – always required some editing once passwords auto / pre populated.
Annoyed by the loss of data and memories – too tight to subscribe to and not a fan of saving my stuff on the mysterious cloud unfortunately.Didn’t bother to lodge a police report in Jan because I was annoyed and had ‘what’s the point’ attitude but decided to file an online report earlier today for statistics reason – hoping someone somewhere would do something a rising number of crimes.
At knifepoint I’m never taking any chance but would probably show them the outstanding balance for the month I have on Barclaycard Avios first and plea poverty.
Sorry to hear that but as you say, the main thing is that you’re unharmed.
That said, my life is on my phone (none of which would be of much interest to a thief!) and I’d probably end up offering a robber cash rather than lose it!
My photos all seem to transfer magically to my iPads though, so I know I would still have those. Most annoying thing would be to lose all my flight and hotel bookings.
Many years ago 2 ruffians tried car-jacking me. I was terrified but also livid at the sheer cheek of them and threw my car keys as far away as I could in the dark so neither the car nor I were any use to them. They gave up in the end and ran off – they must have thought I was just some nice young lady and not an off-duty cop who hailed from Salford 😂
Ha I was going to say will the balance transfer my credit card debt …
Tbh very low current account balances and locked away savings is the way to go. NS&I only lets you transfer to nominated accounts and even then it’s an overnight transfer.
Even if you have a high current account balance, surely they can only get one withdrawal of cash at £250 from a cash point ?
I’ve seen several similar posts also. If you can see the OP has a reasonable history of upvoted posts and comments going back some time, the account is likely legit – though that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
It would just be such an ENORMOUS faff to have a second “banking” phone, which would need a phone number for 2FA, and have to be carried on trips – or not, with consequent loss of access to stuff.
@Misty I think you can draw more than that per day. The £250 limit may be specific to the cashpoint but you can do multiple transactions. Also most debit cards are now contactless so you can go shopping quite easily and just tap and pay.
I’m with @TGLoyalty and just have a small balance on my only current account. I have a linked savings account that holds a bit more which can only be accessed online. The rest of my cash not invested in stocks and shares is in NS&I or Marcus earning decent rates of interest.
As for the topic itself I don’t think London has a particular problem but it is always advisable to be aware of your surroundings. I’ve not felt unsafe but I do avoid London late at night. I think it can happen anywhere.
On that note I was targetted by a group in Toledo back in 2019 and they managed to steal my wallet containing two credit cards and €20. I was suddenly aware I’d been surrounded and next thing they vanished. It was only then that I realised I’d been robbed. Fortunately I was able to phone Amex and cancel the card and they even offered to contact Barclaycard to assist with cancelling that card as well. The most annoying thing about the incident was that I was partially aware and didn’t do anything about it. Also annoyingly I had my return train ticket to Madrid in the wallet so had to buy another one at the station. Fortunately I wasn’t on my own as I had no other cash or cards on me. Lesson learned is to keep some cash in another pocket.
@AJA I realised as soon as I posted that it was much more complex than I first thought, what with people having multiple devices and Apps, and of course as you said with contactless they could go a bit mad. I remember years ago doing a credit card transaction one morning for a fair amount and doing the same in the afternoon and the card issuer blocked my card til I rang to verify it was me. I don’t suppose that happens anymore. What’s Marcus?
Marcus is a bank. Brand belongs to Goldmans.
Sadly, knife crime is common in London.
A friend of mine was drugged by a guy he tried to pick up in a bar, and driven around various cashpoints where his account was emptied. The kidnappers used his fingerprint and phone to get access to his accounts. He did actually get the money refunded by the bank.
My nephew lives in the capital, and no longer feels safe to wear an expensive watch.
(I escaped years ago, and would hate to live there now.)
Marcus is a bank. Brand belongs to Goldmans.
Thank you.
Perhaps there is an app that hides certain apps in the phone?
iOS finally learned not to put all the apps to the mainscreen, but they all are still visible in the app list thingy..My initial point was that they force the victin to “transfer” the monies, which sounds pretty stupid to me..
I’ve seen several similar posts also. If you can see the OP has a reasonable history of upvoted posts and comments going back some time, the account is likely legit – though that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
It would just be such an ENORMOUS faff to have a second “banking” phone, which would need a phone number for 2FA, and have to be carried on trips – or not, with consequent loss of access to stuff.
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