scammed out of £525.000

I must be in the "suckers list", after having been "relieved" of my savings of £3000 recently.The criminals then had a shopping spree in Rotterdam with MY money.These people are very clever and are professionells. Targetting eighty year old ladies mostly.I am not expecting to get back any money.

Given the TV programmes, radio programmes and warnings from our banks, I am astonished that anyone is STILL falling for these scams. I just don't know what is behind such stupidity - greed? ignorance? what?? I get phone calls, texts and emails from scammers - I always ask exactly who they are and why they are calling, and my response is always f**k off. I have to say that taking a fairly aggressive stance has lessened those calls a lot. I call my bank or go online - NEVER click through or respond directly. I don't have much money, and certainly no fat pension pot, but if I did (eg. half a million pounds) I'd be even MORE careful and less trusting about calls from my bank (or anyone else) asking me to move money. Really - do people deserve what they get??

She was actually pregnant with his baby.

I have watched several episodes of "For Love or Money" morning time on BBC. It is about older people who have become lonely either losing a husband /wife through death and decide to take the plunge on dating website. The documentary
shows how many older people are taken in and part with huge amounts of money they think they are talking to and having video calls with a real person but it is only a scammer. By the time they decide to confide in older adult children they have been scammed for thousands of pounds and most of them will be unable to get any money back. I think many of these people must be so lonely and just latch on to anyone that promises them a relationship it is despicable of these con artists/fraudsters to clean out their bank accounts and do that to someone. I would never trust anyone on these sites as
you do not know who these people are.

I opened a new bank account to make the most of the higher interest they were paying. After a test bank transfer of £5 I attempted to move the rest of my savings only to find the original account frozen. It was a bit annoying spending a Sunday afternoon on the phone to the bank but their security checks were vigorous and only when they were convinced I wasn’t being coerced into transferring the money did they unlock the account. Nice to know they were looking out for me

BIG WARNING for everyone... I like to think I'm pretty savvy about scams / phishing etc. But I got caught by a message 'pinging' me for having been in contact with someone with Omicron. The link was to an NHS website where I was asked to pay 99p for postage for a PCR test - except, however convincing it looked, it was NOT the NHS. The PCR test kit never turned up, but my card was used for McDonalds takeaway meals (I'm vegan) and taxis, then the scammer tried to purchase from Liberty Ltd - a Nigerian corporation - for the sum of £970 +. Fortunately, my bank was on the case and rang me. I had the minor charges refunded instantly. The large sum had already been disallowed as it had seemed suspicious. Please be super, super vigilant. How careful we have to be these days!!!

It’s not as if there are no warnings an information. My sympathy is limited. What makes me so mad that if you are a victim of criminal fraud by family members who are executors of a will, the police don’t want to know. It is a position in which you are more vulnerable than victims of scams and the only redress you can get is having a spare £35k to personally do the job that the police are supposed to do to protect you.

^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.^

I had a similar experience with a National children’s charity. I made a one off donation via my mobile phone. They then rang me several times trying to get me to set up a monthly direct debit. When I refused, one caller even accused me of ‘not liking children’! It certainly put me off donating ever again!

I went on my bank app to transfer my son a (mere) fiver as he'd bought something i needed, while he was out- I'm glad i did- i checked the rest while i was on there & noticed a payment of £150 for just eat- i knew i hadn't been on there for a long while as i had either rung direct & paid cash if we had wanted an occasional takeaway, or used a different app- and we would'nt have needed THAT much worth for just 3 of us anyway! I rang bank and they asked a few questions but in end must have proved it wasn't me, as must have been too far for it to be my order! The money was returned next day- and i cancelled my just eat account- but if i hadn't noticed i shudder to think what would have been charged next- or maybe my whole lot transferred? Usually i don't check my account regularly and it was lead up to christmas too. I will be checking more often in future.Even bona fide companies can be guilty too of overcharging etc.I had £72 deducted recently as a contact lens company had re- activated my subscription which i had not asked for, as i had only wanted a trial of new ones at p&p cost only.(which they also charged twice!) Its taken me nearly 2months to get the £72 back.?Be Vigilant.

Pammiel & MissAdventure often the callers, urging you to increase your direct debit or make a larger donation, are companies employed by the charity to ring people who donate. They will take a percentage of your increased donation not just once, but from every payment you make. This is also true of the 'Chuggers' in the High Streets, although they don't seem to be quite so plentiful now.

What worried me about the £150 charge was also that my bank had not even bothered to check that it WAS me actually making the order! I've now recently changed to a different bank, who send alerts each time a transaction is made.?

I thought exactly the same. She’d had so many warnings but still went ahead. I’m surprised the bank gave her anything back, let alone £50K.

Yes I've had those too- the phone 'chuggers' from charities- trying to make me pay a regular or higher donation, after a one-off payment mostly, ringing almost constantly especially in run up to xmas, trying to tug at folks heartstrings etc, i had to just tell them straight, stop ringing &remove my number, if i want to donate ill just pay one- off, when i can afford, as i have been, but now they just come in the post instead!?

I almost got caugot by the WhatsApp con but thought if my daughter had a problem that I had to transfer money to her surely she'd have asked her husband!!. I do hundreds of online competitions, I have an email address just for them so it's great fun getting emails to that account, I know they are all scams/cons

Kate1949

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'.

Me too.
When I complained, separately from dealing with the problem, they said "We'll make a note not to contact you that way."

I told them they shouldn't be contacting anyone in that way.

How awful …was so sad to hear this. The scammers can be very convincing.

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.

So, another time, you may answer Y or N then get a follow up call about the text that you already 'know' is genuine and who knows what you might be led into.

Or maybe you're too clever for that but not everyone is and this is not a good practice from banks & card companies.

I got myself onto the 'possible mark' list by answering questions purporting to be from a market researcher. They asked about the make and age of my washing machine. I mistakenly named the wrong brand. A month later they telephoned offering to extend 'your ten year warranty' on a machine that I do not own.

I have had the "domestic appliance" insurance call every day for around the last 5 or 6 weeks.

Dh had no end of ‘pester’ calls after he made a charity donation via his phone.

For this reason I won’t donate by phone - I’ll donate via the website instead, and if they ask for a phone number they will be disappointed.

If any online shopping sites insist on a phone number, I just make one up. Why they insist I don’t know - you invariably have to give an email address for confirmation - why won’t that do, if they need to contact me?

The one time I did give a phone number, years ago now, was after I’d ordered something for next day delivery. And guess what - I waited in all day, it didn’t arrive, and they didn’t phone to tell me why.
Next day - ‘Oh, sorry, it was unexpectedly out of stock.’
‘So why didn’t you phone me then, having insisted on a phone number?’
They couldn’t answer.
Still, I wrote a stiff letter of complaint and received a £30 voucher, worth rather more then. So it wasn’t quite all bad.

I transferred some money from a saving account to my current account and the cashier queried me very nicely about the transfer because it was in thousands. I told her we were having an extension built and it was a stage payment to the builder, who was well known to us as we had used him for over 20 years. I also told her I understood why she was making the enquiry and appreciated it.

We need to remember that there have always been people around trying to part you from your money. About 30 years ago an acquaintance, a mentally vulnerable man, living alone after his parents died, was cleared of his savings by builders knocking on the door and saying his house needed repairs, who then kept coming back until he was penniless - and of course little or no work was done.

The vast majority of scams are simple and well-known and there is no reason why anyone with their wits about them should fall for them.

As long as there have been computer or telephone scams, we seem to have been phoned/emailed to see if we would respond. it started with salesmen ringing up trying to sell dud shares and recently it was a company selling - well I am not sure, something to do with insulation, hinting that it was some kind of government backed scheme. I checked the company out after the call, just in case I was over suspicious and as expected it was a known scam and I posted info about that on GN.

Serendipity I have had two of those on WhatsAp. First I asked each a question my son would know the answer to...hahaha. I then called son. I also blocked and reported the numbers.

I checked my account online and noticed that I'd apparently spent £100 on a family ticket to a showground. I contacted the bank and it seems that my debit card had been cloned. I don't know where though. The local postmaster told me that a lot of locals had been caught in the same way as a 'comb' had been fitted to an ATM nearby. Needless to say I don't use ATMs any more.

I am with Lloyds and they ask for a passcode almost every time I order anything online so it's surprising they let 525k leave someones account without checking (who has that much money in their account!)

I still use a cheque book to make charity donations, and post them. I don’t want to give credit card details in writing on the forms they send out, or online. The less people that have these details the better.