Have you ever met anyone who’s been scammed out of money?

I work for a retailer that sells vouchers. I can't tell you the amount of times I have refused to sell them to an elderly person who was being threatened by the likes of "Jeff Bezos" or "Elon Musk" to do as they say. Had older ladies come in claiming they were speaking with their childhood pop star crush. Men who are being scammed by pretty women via instagram. Even young employees who fall for their 'boss asking them to buy thousands in vouchers for an employee giveaway'. Several times a day.

I don’t know if I’ve watched love rats when it came out initially. I’m going to watch it now and see. I have to admit I don’t usually have a lot of sympathy for those falling prey to romance scams. For example a pp mentioned their elderly mum thought she was dating a married 30 year old man. Romance scam aside that was morally wrong. I’ve also seen ones where the person getting scammed is the married one.

If more people would be ok with dating those of a similar age and look as them, I bets they could address their loneliness/need for romance without having to send heaps of money to random young soldier /young pretty woman

My mum nearly transferred money to a scammer, thankfully the teller at the bank quizzed her about the transaction (circa £9500). The scam was a call from “Head Office” stating her bank branch was unreliable and committing fraud so she was to transfer the money to another account!
Since this is unusual for my mum the teller asked her to speak to the manager and they uncovered the scam. My mum was warned not tell the bank or her children as this would cause issues. Luckily my Mum can’t lie for toffee hence the manager preventing the transfer.

I was accused of trying to scam a shop. On holidays at a supermarket checkout. I had an expensive bottle of alcohol that had gone through and someone walked off with it. I didn’t see anyone take it but when I went to start bagging my shop I realised it wasn’t there. I tried to explain that the person before me must have taken it, and I needed to get another. Got told no, they had seen this happen before and I had to pay for it. I got really stressed until I realised I could just leave (I hadn’t payed yet) and do my shopping somewhere else.

I find it astonishing how naive some people are. For example, the woman who appeared on This Morning to warn others of romance scams after she was duped out of £££ by “Gerard Butler”.

My mum is around her age and if she announced to me/other family members that she was in a relationship with “Gerard Butter” but had never actually met or indeed spoken to him we’d set her straight pretty quickly!

My DP was scammed out of £50k, it's a long boring story but l said at the time please stop, it was a friend of friend so she knew the 1st person,..turns our loads of people got scammed..l kept saying you throwing good money after bad. Think can you lend me £5k will pay it back in a week with interest, just waiting for paperwork.
These people were in another country obviously no one got any money back.

Yep, my dad, just under £14k. Wouldn't wish it on anyone to deal with

The shame doesn't lie with the victim, but with the perpetrator...

Oh gosh these stories are so sad. People’s lives ruined after losing money through desperation to have their savings grow or through loneliness and want of romance/companionship.

The “Mum I lost my phone/need emergent money quickly” ones are quite scary though. I can see a lot of even astute and savvy parents falling for that one.

It’s also scary how convincing the Parcel scam ones that get you to put in your address via a link to arrange delivery/redelivery are becoming considering loads of people have parcels delivered through couriers each day and if you’re expecting one, it won’t seem suspicious to a lot of people, especially older people who may not order parcels as much and think it’s normal protocol.

Not exactly but I went to school with someone who was in the local papers for being part of a gang that conned pensioners out of their life savings through some kind of call centre scam.

I can’t imagine anyone I know would fall for a romance scam.

I've been scammed. I.wont say how as it'll be outing, but not a romance scam or sending money abroad or anything like that

I was scammed for 15k, and the knock on impact meant I lost quite a bit more money than that.

It made me feel sick, ashamed, sad, desperate and overwhelmed.

I just don't know how people live with themselves when they commit these scams.

Probably, doubt they’d make it common knowledge.

Guy at work nearly fell for a romance scam.
His Russian girlfriend text to say she had got 'stuck in customs' on the day she (allegedly) flew out to meet him & needed 2k to be released.

Thankfully he asked our boss to lend him the cash, so he was able to intervene & point out it was obviously a scam and no Russian beauty was actually waiting for him at Birmingham International.

I met someone who fell for the American Soldier romance scam. She was quite young and very lonely. I can't see how she didn't know it was a scam, I suspect she enjoyed the attention even though she knew it wasn't genuine. She couldn't afford the money she sent.

“A friend fell for the 'Mum I lost my phone' scam”

When I get that (and I have), I text back, “Oh, is that Charlie?” And they say, “Yes, it’s Charlie, I’ve lost my phone”, at which point I delete and block because I don’t have a DC called Charlie.

Yes. Friends husband had a call from his bank. They old him they needed to transfer their entire business account balance due to a fraudulent transaction , only it wasn't the bank of course. It was a lot of money and he did eventually get it all back as the bank admitted fault
I think.

Two friends of mine were scammed:

• one got a call from someone pretending to be his bank telling him he needed to move money as his account was no longer safe. Luckily his bank refunded him the full amount.
• same friend met someone online who claimed they had financial issues, he'd send him money most days to pay for his food or some other smallish expense. It only stopped when the app he used changed the rules and he could no longer send money in the same way. He asked me to send him the money saying he'd pay me back - I refused. By the time he got to this stage a couple of grand had been sent over. Funnily enough when he couldn't send money anymore he stopped hearing from this guy as much.
• the other friend had some guy come onto him at a bar, told him he couldn't go back with him that night, but did want to see him again. Asked if he could put his number into my friends phone- he'd actually gone onto his banking app and sent a load of money to himself.

My SIL fell for someone on line and borrowed 7k to send to him 🤷‍♀️

My MIL fell for an email from someone who she believed was her friend, asking her to buy supermarket vouchers on her behalf and sending the scammer the voucher numbers . She did it a couple of times before her daughter caught her doing it and did some digging. She lost about £300

I had one of those. Immediately knew it was a scam because DS’s friends all have my phone number. He’s notorious for losing his phone while staying at friends’ houses so I often get texts asking me to ping his phone. It’s the main reason he still has his account linked to mine.

Older, unwell in-law lost a few thousand to a phone scammer purporting to be her son, saying they were in financial trouble.
We got the money back for her, from her bank. The whole thing was devastating for her.

I know a very intelligent man who was scammed out of A LOT of money in a crypto scam. It's not just lonely old women.

A lady I worked with was scammed out of a lot of money by a man she met online, we all warned her but she was adamant he was genuine no matter what we said

yes not a romance scam though if that's what you mean? my mum sold something very expensive online and the person paid with fake notes, not sure how she didn't notice they were very obviously fake.

Friend’s mother was in her seventies, hugely obese with a lot of medical conditions as a result and wheelchair bound and fell for a romance scam from an ‘American soldier’. She sent him tens of thousands and died shortly after it was discovered. Poor lady.

another friend had a call from ‘her bank’ saying she had been hacked and her m savings were in the process of being stolen. She gave the caller remote control of her online banking and they stole every penny.