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

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

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.

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!

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.

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 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

Just read another pps post about vouchers - my dads was Google Play vouchers

I did, many years ago by a driving instructor - only about £250,but it was a lot to me then.
I didn't get it back, but got huge satisfaction from reporting him for VAT and tax evasion - saw it reported in the local press about a year later.

No!!! Oh my gosh that is just awful. Absolutely awful

I don't know anyone personally but I work in fraud and we see it all too often sadly.

How does that scam work?

Neighbour’s dad sent loads of money to an animal charity. A real charity but they kept sending letters begging for more cash and he donated about 50000 pounds in the end, his savings. Not a scam but not right in my book.

My best friend was scammed out of 10000 Euros, i.e. first three months’ rent, for a flat that didn’t exist. They were very clever and she was very desperate as flats are so hard to find here.

That’s terrible, I’m so sorry that happened to you

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Jesus!

I work in fraud and this is a common scam and people do fall victim to it.
Mum, I lost my phone.
Mum replies, whose phone you texting from?
Scammer replies saying mate has lent them one and they are in need of some cash and ask if they can bank transfer them some cash.
Unfortunately some people do the transfer without checking as they are just worried about their kid.

I just binge watched Cold Call on Netflix this weekend. If anyone’s interested it’s a 4 part drama series about a woman who was scammed out of the money she made on a house sale (80K) by someone pretending to be from her bank.

What the actual fuck?! I didn’t even know charities were allowed to reach out to people and continuously request donations. 50,000 is so much money!

That’s ruthless wow

Did the neighbours dad get his money back? Might not be a scam but might fall under coercion. In my world this would possibly be refunded back to the customer but we are credit cards so not sure if bank accounts fall under the same terms.

It really opened my eyes working in fraud. Scammers are absolutely ruthless, we often get the scammers trying to call us, pretending to be the customer!

My dad was nearly scammed from someone pretending to be from talk talk. They were very insistent he transferred them some money via western union that day. He was going along with it and asked his neighbour to give him a lift to the post office , and the neighbour realised it was a scam.
Another friend was scammed out of 10k which was all their savings, I can't remember exactly how, it was some scheme were they were persuaded to invest but I can't recall how they were contacted

a female relative, widowed, desperately lonely and vulnerable, got involved with romance scam.

I know one person (self-employed professional) who was scammed by her secretary out of her practice account. It went to court. The money was all spent so no hope getting it back.

And another, a consultant doctor, who was scammed by his cleaning lady. He had recently separated acrimoniously and assumed it was his ex wife eking revenge via the joint savings. The cleaning lady got a new conservatory, and bought her son a motorbike.

Both in the tens of thousands.