Crusader House of horror as hackers strike
IT SHOULD have been a happy day for a young couple who were completing on the purchase of their first home. But things took a disastrous turn for Laura Jones and Chris Black last July when £28,556, part of the payment they thought they were transferring via their conveyancing solicitor, was syphoned off by online fraudsters in a sophisticated sting.
“We’ve been left to pay a terrible price,” says Chris, who had sent the funds from his bank account to Alireza Nurbakhsh of London-based Oliver Fisher Solicitors.
Clients in England and Wales lost £7million in cyber attacks on law practices last year, according to national standards body the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), with the majority of scams involving conveyancing.
“Firms must inform the regulator if they lose client money or data but the problem and size of losses may currently be under-reported,” says the SRA. “Other research has shown that a quarter of firms have been targeted by cyber criminals, with nearly one in 10 resulting in money being stolen.”
The most common is the so-called “Friday afternoon” fraud which is where criminals modify emails directly, usually by hacking into the email system of an individual or solicitor, then altering details so funds go to the criminal.
Friday is a favoured day as this is when completions mostly take place and criminals make use of the extra time over the weekend to avoid detection.
As Chris was sending his and Laura’s completion funds in tranches he received the scam confirmation that typified many described by the SRA. It directed him to place the remaining settlements into the firm’s “alternative client account”.
The email was identical in address and appearance to every one of the other previous communications he had received, he says.
Both Chris and Laura felt the care that they were owed as clients of an expert and trusted entity also fell seriously short in other ways.
“If the problem of hacking is so prevalent then we want to know why we weren’t warned more clearly,” said Laura. “Where’s the harm in making your customers as aware as possible about the known risks, including if transferring money in lots is less secure?
“We cannot recall if these points were raised by our solicitor in conversation. The vast majority of contact was by email.
“And while there was a disclaimer beneath his email signature, this was not visible if you were viewing on a mobile phone or a preview pane in Microsoft Outlook.
“However, since our problem we’ve noticed that there is a much more obvious warning on Oliver Fisher emails, which might suggest they saw room for improvement.”
When Mr Nurbakhsh responded to Laura and Chris’s complaints he confirmed that he had reported the matter to the SRA, sent his regrets and stressed “it is the first time that such an incident happened to this firm”.
The couple then went through the proper channels, telling their bank and the police – who are responsible for investigating and tracking down the fraudsters.
But deeply unhappy about their whole experience Chris and Laura also contacted Crusader. We took expert legal advice and pointed them in the direction of the Legal Ombudsman regarding their issues concerning the care they received from the solicitors.
This free official scheme helps to sort out complaints about service that people get from lawyers and claims management companies.
The couple’s families rallied round to lend them the missing money in order that they could complete their house purchase but that huge extra debt remains.
They have vowed to keep pressing for answers and maintain that “the nightmare continues”.
Oliver Fisher Solicitors declined to comment. The Ombudsman is now investigating the complaint.
legalombudsman.org.uk (Couple’s names changed)