Identity theft and internet fraud with Barclays involvement

Hello,
I've been the victim of lost 5500 Eur which were transfered into a Barclays bank account used fraudulently by a scammer who pretends to be Alex Pedersen, sales director of the company Q-Park Danmark. The bank account details are specified below:

??? Bank Account Reported
Account owner: Q-Park Danmark
Bank name: Barclays Bank
Bank Address: 93 Baker Street, London, W1A 4SD, United Kingdom
Bank number 93-84-50-52 Sort code: 20-69-15
IBAN GB68BARC20691593845052 BIC code: BARCGB22

I've made two international transfers from Romanian bank, first one on 1st of October 2013 (2750 Eur) and the second one on 07th of October 2013 based on the contract of sale (reference 2013-151129) provided by the scammer named above. The object of the contract of sale was a digger New Holland LS 185 B advertised by the scammer on website http://www.kleinanzeigen-landesweit.de/ ... 75000.html (on this page there is no information about the seller) and http://www.qpark-az.com/ (the fake Q-Park Danmark website, this page isn't accesible anymore due to complaint made to domain owner United-Domains AG, Germany).

After requesting additional information about the product advertised on http://www.kleinanzeigen-landesweit.de/ ... 75000.html I was contacted in the same day, 26th of September 2013, by e-mail by so-called Alex Pedersen and offered more details about the company Q-Park Danmark and about the product, as well as delivery options from Denmark to Romania. We've been communicating from 26/09/2013 until 08/10/2013 especially by e-mail, and the scammer also called me on 30/09/2013 to inform me that he sent me the contract of sale and the first transfer with half of the money I had to make in two working days into provided Barclays bank account to proceed with the delivery and send him the scanned copy of the receipt to confirm the payment.

Once the first transfer (2750 Eur) was made and confirmed, the scammer informed that the delivery procedure had been started on 07th of October and that it was the moment to proceed with the transfer of the rest of the value (2750 Eur) and, at my request, he provided me with a delivery evidence - the tracking reference together with a link to an international transport company website (Grishaw Freights Denmark). Having this evidence I've transfered the rest of the money into the same Barclays bank account. This delivery transport link http://www.grishawfreights.com/ turned out to be also fake as a few days later it was imposible to access anymore.

After transferring the entire amunt requested by the scammer for delivering the product, the delivery expected on 14th of October wasn't completed and I received no answer whatsoever from the scammer whom I've contacted repeatedly by phone (+447741547723) and by e-mail ([email protected]/ [email protected]). Then, I've finally called at a Denmark phone number (+45 70257212 - Service Center) found on website http://www.q-park.com/ (the international page of the real Q-Park company) which has indeed business in Denmark (and the local website is http://www.q-park.dk/ very similar with the one provided by the scammer) and I was told that they don't sale cars/constructions machines, they only sale parking and have no connection with the website http://www.qpark-az.com/ and they weren't aware of the existence of it. Their sales director is called indeed Alex Pedersen but wasn't the person who contacted me and offered to sell me the digger. Few days after, I was contacted by the lawayer of real Alex Pedersen to inform me the actions they've personally taken into this identity theft case against the scammer that used Q-Park Danmark name, trademark and abused of the name of their client, Mr.Alex Pedersen (complaint against company hosting website http://www.qpark-az.com/; official complaint to Danish autorities). Their legal counsel informed me that they've actioned against other similar websites found with identical content ( http://www.qpark-az.com; http://s484033656.online.de/qpark/en/; http://www.q-park.dk/dk/om-q-park/nyhed ... g-advarsel.).

Q-Park Danmark included today a warning on their offical website regarding the scammers that are using their company identity in fraud purpose: http://www.q-park.dk/dk/om-q-park/nyhed ... g-advarsel

Yesterday I`ve received from Barclays Bank a standard letter stating that they ddin´t know that the account was used for fraude purpose at the time I´ve transferred the money, they´ve now closed it but without any funds remaining they can´t return me the money.
I´ve also made a complaint to Action Fraud, they gave me the reference, but I have no answer yet. I´ve complaint to Interpol, Romanian Police, Danish Embassy, and many other places.

From my bank I was told that the Barclays should have checked also the beneficiary of the account, I`m not sure if this has to be done in case of interrnational money transfers involving companies, but Barclays seems not to take any type of ownership in this fraud case.

I would really appreciate if someone could offer me some guidance to regain the money or if indeed there´s no chance whatsoever in doing this.

Thank you!

Welcome to Scamwarners alpet.

As a UK citizen and someone who spent their whole working life in a major UK bank I must state that the current situation in the UK is a shocking scandal. I won't go in to specific detail and I could upset many people by stating some very plain facts about what is going on, probably even you alpet, but UK law enforcement and UK banks are shockingly deficient in applying the law and money laundering legislation.

It's bad enough that there are hundreds if not thousands of UK victims of this fraud, but the UK has become a magnet to attract fraudsters from all over the world to such an extent that stolen funds from international frauds are being laundered through London and victims from Eastern Europe regularly report their losses in this forum. It's shameful that foreigners who believe that the UK operates stringent controls over fraud actually find that our legislation and law enforcement is abysmally lax and poorly applied.

I regret to inform you that there is very little chance of you getting your money back alpet and the situation is the same with UK victims and the police and banks are no help. You can submit a report to the FCA, who are the regulators of banks in the UK just so that they know the scale of the fraud and which banks are involved, but the only possible way that people can change the situation is by contacting their Member of Parliament in the UK to put pressure on UK banks to comply with current legislation and make the regulator apply the sanctions on banks that do not comply with legislation. This won't get people their money back but it might help people in the future.

The problem is that by doing nothing this harms the reputation of UK banks and puts off people from trading in the UK market, so there is a cost of doing nothing. Unfortunately I don't think many victims are prepared to take the simple and cost free action to take this matter up at a political level that would change the situation.