I've just witnessed a scam and can't believe it!

A similar thing happened to my friend and her husband. They were looking for a van on an internet website, and were going to buy one unseen. Paying by money order from the Post Office.
I told them not to do it without seeing the van, but they went to the PO with the cash.
Luckily the clerk there warned them off (Western Union.)
I still don't understand how people can be so gullible. My friends are living on minimum income to survive.

Well done for intervening, Solitaire! I do hope the man was saved from his own gullibility. Perhaps the PO staff will have an update the next time you go in. It would be good to know the end result.

Trouble is, the scamsters can get such a hold over people, and unless the person has been shown to lack capacity, there's really nothing you can do, since the law takes the view that people are free to throw their money away if they wish.

I found out a while ago that an elderly neighbour had fallen for a so called 'lottery' scam, I.e. someone phoned her (pretending to be from NatWest as I later found out) and told her she'd won a million pounds (on a lottery she had never entered for) only of course she had to make a payment for 'tax' first..

By the time I found out, she had made umpteen of these payments, at least £4K a time, to people abroad.
Dh and I told her very bluntly that it was a scam, they were just criminals, but she wouldn't have it, she believed them utterly. They tell their victims not to tell friends or relatives, since 'they'll just be jealous and try to prevent you from getting your prize.' She would not go to the police, or let us do so, and if she wouldn't even talk to them, let alone make a complaint, there was no point in us contacting them.

In the end her children put a block on her phone and had her mail redirected. By then her dd told me she thought about £100k had gone down the drain.

Previously I knew she had been addicted to those Wordsearch 'competitions', where you very conveniently phone in all your details at God knows how much per minute. Lists of likely victims who do this sort of competition are sold on in 'suckers' lists' - they do actually call them that.

There is a website called Think Jessica, all about various scams largely targeted specifically at the vulnerable/naive elderly, It makes very scary reading, but anyone with such potentially at-risk relatives should read it.

I'm still thinking about it and yes he was probably embarrassed. The staff at the post office had his name and address and were contacting police. I rang my son to tell him and he said "mum, stop worrying about him, you can't save some people from themselves" and of course he's right. Despicable though these scammers.
I can't work out how the man could have £1000 in his account, presuming he had actually checked that, and yes cornergran I could hear how threatening they sounded on the phone. The P O staff couldn't hear the phone calls behind their glass screen.

I was just about to say the same as annodomini
Fingers crossed that the bank are on the ball as post office and yourself solitaire
&

He may also have been frightened. Maybe some threats were made. You tried to help. Hopefully the police would contact him as the post office staff would have known his name. Sad and worrying.

He would have been very embarrassed at the idea that he had been scammed which would have added to his anger and possibly hardened his attitude. I hope the bank - if he went there - would also dissuade him from this course of action.

I think it was lovely that you intervened ( with others) and tried to help. Nfk might be right when she says he may have had second thoughts once he got outside, lets hope so. Money box often does an item on a variety of these scams- apparently it's common now for them to first send you some money and you see it in your account but then they have some way of taking it out again whilst you are 'paying it back'. Some of the examples on Money box were frighteningly sophisticated and I could see how someone, especially on their own and vulnerable, could be taken in. It's very very cruel

Well done for intervening - that is dreadful.

I hate it when you cant rescue a person from themselves.

But there again, they dont want "rescuing".

So not your problem.

That is so awful.Unfortunately some of the nicest people can be the most gullible.

Hopefully he thought about it once outside and realised he was making a fool of himself and a big mistake and came to his senses.