scammed out of £525.000

Serendipity
I had the exact same scam a few months ago. I assumed it was my daughter living currently in New Zealand. I fell for it and so did my husband and we transferred money, about £1200. We were lucky because we realised and reported it the next day and our bank recovered the money.
I made a thread about it at the time so others would be warned. We are normally quite savvy money/scam wise but this one pulled at our heart strings because it was our daughter and we complied even though we had a few misgivings about it. We felt so stupid afterwards.

busybeejay

I was scammed a couple of months ago.A “police officer” did the blurb ….I did not believe him and asked for his number and his senior.They put me through to a”police “ station and confirmed they were genuine.NOT.All part of the scam.I nearly lost £20.000 .I am not gullible and intelligent but nearly fell for this.Beware.Don’t trust anyone asking for money.
Barbarax

You didn’t phone the police yourself??? From your own phone? facepalm

I am a competent adult but after realising I’d had a few texts and landline phone calls from scammers, I now leave my landline in spare room and only do ring backs to numbers I know.
I don’t answer unknown number calls on my mobile.

Not too long ago I read in the Sunday Times of one of their own financial journalists or researchers, who’d been scammed.

If someone like that can fall for it, it’s doubly necessary for us all to be hyper-vigilant, and not complacently confident that we’re too canny to ever be caught. Though I know how easy it is to think like that - I’m sure I’ve been guilty enough of it.

I can believe it actually. My husband is really clever and worked in IT all his career. He’s used to protecting information and well aware of scams etc.
Recently we had the most sophisticated attempt at scamming us. They said they were from the fraud dept of our bank. My husband was initially really wary but they were so good. They had so much information on us including our account numbers and our balances etc.
They eventually wanted him to set up a new account and transfer money which made my husband stop in his tracks, but prior to that they sounded totally legit.
I think it might been an inside job tbh. My husband was shocked as he never thought in a million years he’d nearly get taken in like that !

Just to add a further spanner in the works.
I did have fraudulent activity on my bank account.
I recieved a text to tell me, which I ignored (as advised) and then further texts, again ignored, as banks never text.

Except they do!!

I have been conned out of £10k and it could still be going on if I’d let it because ‘ someone ‘ or some sophisticated computer system has hacked into my HMRC records and knew in exact detail that I was a senior Tax Inspector dealing with tax avoidance, offshore trusts, ‘ nowhere ‘ companies, Ponzi schemes, tax havens, Bitcoin and Bitcoin fraud. I then fell for the story that I could stop money going to ISIS and the Taliban.
I’ve now got a senior barrister working on this for me. I don’t expect to get my money back, but I want to bust this so called ‘ Michael Paolo ‘ who is a FRAUD, and stop him / it operating again !!!

On a radio consumer programme some years ago I heard of a lady who had fallen for the ' We are Microsoft, your computer has a fault and we can fix it for a small paymnent' scam. That poor woman lost over £45,000, her life savings. They are jst so plausible, and I ofen get calls here telling me that I am owed money having been overcharged for a repair etc. I usually give the caller some excellent advice, and hang up.

Well, apparently that is also our fault for answering our own phones.
Outrageously entitled behaviour!

I am getting several emails every day saying my "non existent : Norton and Macafee accounts have been suspended. plus other offers. I always forward to [email protected]. They all have a name in common with other numbers added making the sender's email different. . Who the H* is Kildare.? I know what I would like to to to him. angry.

Witzend I remember that case. The poor girl was pregnant with his baby as well, and the terrorist knew it.
How can anyone be so evil? I hope she and her child found happiness.

Wasn't he a doctor?

MissAdventure

I often used to find my mum in the middle of a chat with some phone person.
They would be asking after the family by name, and telling her they had been praying for my daughter.
All info she had given, but she was lonely and spent hours alone.
She welcomed someone to show some interest.

My sister once found my mum talking to someone on the phone who was trying to get my mums refit card details - not necessarily a scammer but could have been selling something. I had anticipated this situation and had scratched off the cvc number from the back of mums card. The woman on the end of the phone was going round in circles trying to explain to mum where to find the cvc number to complete the purchase - mum had Alzheimer’s so had previously bought random things such as five sky insurance policies for a non existent Sky dish!

My sister just took the phone and gave the caller a right earful!

I watched this and my heart broke for the poor woman.
I thought that she was intelligent, pretty much on the ball and definitely someone that you wouldn't expect would be taken in by scammers.
However, the stories that some tell, hit your panic button and quite honestly, you don't think straight as the story plays out.
I had it happen to me to a small decree when a message flashed up on my lap top screen supposedly from Microsoft to say that my whole system was under attack and if I clicked on the screen, it would take me to someone that would be able to help.
I only paid over £30 - I don't do online banking and I kept telling them that I only had benefits to live on , before I was able to shut the system down and regain control. Thankfully my bank was very helpful and I had it refunded.
However, I still can't understand why people would pay over thousands of pounds to someone that they have never met and sometimes in the process go into deep dept by taking out loans.
I should just guess that when we are in a vulnerable position, none of us knows how we would act in their place.

OLDWOMAN70 that exact scam happened to my friends mum and she lost £8,000 .
She had the start of dementia and they were so friendly on the phone she believed every word they said, even after her daughter told her it was a scam, they called the taxi, she went to the bank and handed the money over! There was nothing the police

You can’t trust anyone these days - so many absolutely convincing ways to con people out of their money.
Just evil, evil people - not interested in the consequences of their actions.
My heart goes out to the victims of these crimes, their vulnerabilities exploited, no-one deserves that.
The more these criminals schemes are out in the public domain hopefully the more people will learn to do their due diligence and not be rushed into having a knee jerk reaction. An honest person with nothing to hide will welcome you double checking.
Restless website has quite a lot of information on scams.

… Thankfully I’ve got no money for anyone to con out of me - my kids have done the job for them !!!

Same here MissA. I was told my bank never send automated messages with 'Press 1, press 2' etc. So when I got one telling me there had been fraudulent activity on my account, I ignored it. I got another one so phone the number on my bank card. They said 'Yes that was us'.

SparklyGrandma

I am a competent adult but after realising I’d had a few texts and landline phone calls from scammers, I now leave my landline in spare room and only do ring backs to numbers I know.
I don’t answer unknown number calls on my mobile.

Unfortunately there are times when I’ve had to answer unknown numbers on my mobile. My mum had dementia and we used a call blocking device to have all her unrecognised numbers ( those not on a trusted list that I set up) to my mobile and as doctors or hospital appointment usually with held their numbers, I had to answer. Likewise when she went into a care home the staff there often used the their mobiles and they were unknown numbers to me.

But I was obviously aware of such calls so quickly got rid of any dubious callers.

Some bank staff are very good at detecting potential fraud. My brother-in-law is a builder and he did some work for an elderly friend. The friend asked for a lift to the bank to withdraw cash to pay for the work. The bank staff were suspicious of a builder walking into the branch with an elderly customer, and quickly swooped, and directed my B.I.L. and his friend to separate interview rooms. After questioning both parties, the bank were satisfied they had know each other for years, and there was a genuine bill to be settled for building work. Sadly, as more and more branches are closing, there is less chance of bank staff being able to spot a potential problem.

MissAdventure

I had to have very serious words with the salvation army and tell them to leave my mum alone.
She had made a one off donation, then they were virtually hounding her.

My mum had the same problem with a well know charity a few years ago. She had made a one off donation for a small amount and it triggered numerous calls from them asking for substantial donations. Thankfully she hadn’t paid them anything. I found out what was happening a short time later after she was diagnosed with dementia, at which point I called the charity and told them she was in no position to make donations and to please stop calling. I followed this up in writing, telling them that if they made contact again I would take legal action as I considered it harassment. The calls stopped, and I got a very apologetic letter confirming that her name had been taken off the contact lists their operators worked from. I was quite shocked at the tactics employed by what I had considered a reputable organisation.

Serendipity22

I had a WhatsApp message which began Hi mum, I dropped my old phone in water and now it doesnt work ( or words to that effect ) I have an invoice to pay, can you lend me the money -, blah blah blah. So considering I have 2 AC, it could have been from either, BUT my radar was on red alert by the wording on the message.

I knew my DD hadn't changed her number, so that left my DS, like i say, the wording set my radar off.

Anyway, to cut long story short, they didn't get a penny from me, but some poor, unsuspecting person would have fallen for the cock 'n' bull message....

Makes my blood boil

Similar thing happened to me. For a moment I almost fell for it but then I knew my daughter wouldn’t ask me for money, and if she did she’d do it face to face.
I phoned her from my landline to double check it wasn’t her and of course it was a scam.

My mother had a regular payment to the Salvation Army and other charities (she could afford them, there was no problem with that) and when she died I contacted them all to say that the payments would stop and why. The Salvation Army took longest to convince. Although I think they are an excellent charity, I donate to them either in cash in the street or anonymously!

Poor woman but fancy having that sort of money in a general account that could be shifted so easily. She could have split it up into ISA's.

It’s all too easy for charities to pester you, if you make one of those supposedly one-off £3 or £5 donations by phone. Dh once did it and had no end of pester calls.

Before I had a smartphone I would donate online if I wanted to, and would never give a phone number - I do the same now and also avoid dishing out my phone number to anyone when buying online.

If any website does insist, I just make one up. ?

I've received texts from my bank's fraud department twice, checking whether CC purchases I had made were genuine. I just had to reply Y or N to the texts which was fine, no account (or any other pertinent ) details were given either end.
It was checking if it was indeed me who had made the purchases, (from BA) -- and I had. They check if it's large amounts and because fraudulent plane ticket sales, using fake websites, are a thing.
(And British Airways has indeed been hacked in the past... )
I was also told to look up the bank's own fraud phone numbers independently to check on the texts. Which I did, too.
My purchases were legitimate but the bank held up the CC payment for a little while during this process, then it all went through. Quite reassuring.
So some texts may be legit but any genuine organization will not object to customers making independent checks.