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

[UhOhhhhh]

I’m currently watching Love Rats on Netflix which I know is an old documentary. It’s made me wonder just how many people have been scammed (or close to being scammed) in their lives before. The fact that some of the victims have had £10K, £40K and even £120K taken from them by scammers is crazy!!

Have you ever known anyone that’s been scammed? I luckily don’t think I have

My 80 year old neighbour was scammed to the tune of around £30,000. He told me this in tears, it was his life savings, he'd wanted to leave it to his daughter. He'd been contacted about an investment scheme, and asked to invest £500. Within a few weeks his bank account had been credited with around £800. This convinced him it was genuine and he then invested £30k. Never heard from anyone again. Lost the lot. Police couldn't help. I always wonder what would have happened if he'd just taken the £800 and stopped there. Would he have scammed the scammers?

FIL and a former client. Both via Facebook for Amazon type vouchers from a “woman”. DH then noticed someone buying a large amount of the same vouchers in a supermarket and was able to speak to them and explain what had happened to his DF. He wasn’t sure if they took much notice but hopefully he made them think twice. I think it’s more common than we realise.

My mum. In real life, rather than online. She just wouldn't listen to me when I asked her why a 30 year old married man would be interested in a nearly 70 year old woman. In the end I had to forbid her from talking about him to me. Over £10,000 later (which she didn't have, so was all on loans and credit cards) she had to sell her house to pay it off and ended her life in debt in a council bungalow (which she was damn lucky to get!)

I was scammed out of £800 by a fake tradesperson when I was a young adult. Not thousands but it was a lot of money to me and caused undue stress and upset.

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

A friend’s elderly MIL. Scammers called her and pretended to be her bank. She was savvy enough to say she needed to call her bank’s number to be sure it was her bank, but they stayed on the line and kept up the pretence. She lost £30k.

Do you mean big scams or small scams? Lots of 'small' scams about.

I've lost money trying to get a good deal by buying a voucher to then get the item, but it was out of stock so money voucher wasn't able to be redeemed. Won't ever do that again.

Also I tried to rent a flat, private landlord that seemed legit initially when showing me around Then I smelled a rat so did some checks and cancelled the cheque. It was a scam.

I've seen a few fairly convincing email phishing scams too. Not actually fallen for them though.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

Probably, doubt they’d make it common knowledge.

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.

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.

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.

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