An Essex farmer who lost nearly £30,000 in a bogus tractor deal has warned how easily criminals can trick victims after he was caught out by a cloned dealership website.
Richard Bennett, 61, who farms near Brentwood, thought he was buying a John Deere 6430 after spotting it on a farm machinery website in January 2020.
He transferred almost £30,000 through his local HSBC branch, believing he was dealing with a legitimate French dealership.
But when the tractor repeatedly failed to arrive, and a friend travelled to France to collect it, Bennett discovered the dealership’s website had been cloned. Criminals had copied the company’s branding and hosted a fake site in Panama, duping multiple victims.
Bennett said the scam left him reeling. “It was a big hit to my business, at a time when we are really struggling. You can’t just make up £30,000.”
HSBC initially refused to refund the money, but Bennett turned to the National Fraud Helpline solicitors, who argued the bank had a duty to protect customers from such scams.
Last week the firm secured a settlement of £22,289, and Bennett is considering an application to the Financial Ombudsman Service to try to recover the remainder.
“It’s brilliant to get the money back,” he said. “I had written that money off, and it will be a tremendous help. It will help the bank balance and give us some peace of mind to keep us going.”
The scam came at a particularly difficult time for Bennett, whose Case tractor had recently been stolen. He had been searching for a John Deere 6430 for several years to help with haymaking and thought he had finally found the right machine.
“They are few and far between, and I’d been outbid at auctions,” he explained. “This one looked like the right money, and it was being sold by a genuine firm. I went on Google and clicked on the website, and it looked like a proper company website with millions of pounds worth of stock.”
His friend’s visit to the genuine French dealership confirmed the fraud. “My friend went there with a copy of the invoice and said they’d come to pick up a tractor.
"And the people at the dealership said they didn’t know anything about it. It’s a family firm, and the lady there ended up in tears over it. They had other copies of these fake invoices where other people had had the same problem.”
The French authorities investigated, though Bennett is not aware of any prosecutions. Meanwhile, he has had to borrow money to build secure storage for his machinery and has since bought another John Deere 6430 from a dealer in Oxford. “Getting this money back will certainly help to get on with the building,” he added.
Skye Stockings, a lawyer at the National Fraud Helpline, said scams of this kind were on the rise. “This was a sophisticated scam that we are sure more farmers will have fallen foul of. We’re aware that there’s a big problem with farm machinery scams.”
She added that businesses often did not realise they could claim money back through their banks. “Fraud in the UK rose by more than a third last year and the advent of AI makes it harder to spot.
"A lot of legitimate adverts are also being cloned. All businesses are incredibly vulnerable to scams.”
