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

Friend lost £20k to an investment scam, recommended to him by his Financial adviser (who lost his wife's pension fund to the scam)..This was about 15 years ago now, when such things were generally very crude - this one was not crude, it was very convincing, with funds kept in a segregated account in a high street bank. After a year, the "fund" had grown by a decent amount (not a "too good to be true" amount) so he was persuaded to "leave it in " another year.

Once it became obvious that it was a scam, and that the bank statements were forgeries, friend joined a joint action against the bank that was involved, and got all his funds back (though no interest). Fraudster was in due course jailed for a long period.

My sister was chatting to some bloke she'd met through a dating app. As soon as she said he was a soldier I was questioning whether he was real. My dsis is vulnerable and the most gullible person I know. She had told this person quite early on that she was due her divorce settlement soon the fool. I was lucky enough to get through to her and pick his lies apart before she lost a lot of money but he did still manage to get 500 out of her for "flights" to get to her.

My late grandfather was scammed out of his whole life savings by my cousin his own grandchild. A very proud man who worked hard his whole life. He died a poor man thanks to them. And the family covered it up. I suspect because they all had a finger in the pie.

All very well, and maybe she’d listen, but the neighbour in my pp was utterly convinced that her scamsters were on the level - just would not listen. IMO they use psychological techniques to ‘hook’ their victims. There was absolutely nothing we could do - the police will do nothing unless the person themselves makes a complaint. It came to a stop only after her dcs blocked unknown callers.
U.K. law takes the view that people are free to throw their money away however they wish - unless they have been proved to be of unsound mind, which neighbour was not - just extremely naive and trusting - especially since the initial caller - such a nice woman! - told her she worked for NatWest Bank!

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER Oh yes, the lady at the ISP to whom I reported my nearly-scam admitted that she kept her PIN actually in the case with her phone... admitted that was daft but didn't say she was going to stop doing it!

The first line of defence to a scam is knowing that you could fall prey to a scam. Know your own weak spot:

• do you like a bargain
• do you feel lonely
• do you like to feel 'in the know'
• do you avoid any sort of public exposure or embarrassment
• do you want to protect your family

I think that helps to identify the type of scam you are most vulnerable to.

For me, it's the last two. I can see that I could be vulnerable to a scam which involved public embarrassment or where I needed to protect my family.

I've never been scammed - for years I've watched Kitboga, Jim Browning, Scammer Payback on YouTube so I'm reasonably knowledgeable.
Recently I received the Mum I lost my phone text message. I played along with him for a while, then.....he rang !
I didn't answer because my phone had been on silent but I saw I had a missed call. I admit I got a bit scared - he was taking a risk phoning me surely?
I got back into the chat and asked, Did you phone? He messaged, Yes, just wondered if you'd sent the money.
I replied that I hadn't because I couldn't be bothered and blocked.

If you don’t mind me asking, with the romance scam did you ever actually meet the person? Or was it an online interaction and they started asking for money?

Fucking hell!!

I had great fun with one of these.
First of all I asked how the weather was there in Australia (DD is in The UK) then I spent ages telling them all the local "gossip", including how him next door had been caught shagging the postman (again).
Eventually I got told to Fuck off - not very nice "DD"

I work with people who have dementia. You'd be amazed at the number of estranged relatives who suddenly appear and offer to take on Lasting Power of Attorney when a diagnosis is made.

Ouch. Gonna take a while to get over that.

Nobody I know - we are far too cautious. But a member of staff got a (very obviously) scam email - you know the sort, where someone has £200 million and you've inherited part of it from a long lost relative in Outer Mongolia? He asked me if it was real. I told him no it wasn't, delete it, it was a scam, it was obvious etc etc. Two weeks later, having sent them all his bank details, they cleared out his account. I knew he wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I hadn't realised he was quite that stupid. I can see how people fall for sophisticated scams. Even some of the not quite so sophisticated ones. But not one that transparent.

I imagine we all have, it's just that people tend not to talk about it.

We were scammed about 10 years ago now when our builder had his email hacked (before these kind of 'invoice scams' were common knowledge) and asked for a deposit against forthcoming works. We lost about 3k. I tried to tell as many people about it as possible but the temptation to keep quiet and feel embarrassed is quite large.

For my job I often have to arrange for people to make payments to Estate Agents and I tell them never to do it unless they verify the account details, I usually phone The Agent using the phone number on the agents website, and get them to read the account details over the phone to check they are the same ones in the email link.

My ex and my mother scammed me

He left me for another woman,leaving me with 8k of debts he'd signed for in my name (I knew nothing about them)

How he did that,I will never know and nobody was bothered about the fraud,they just wanted their money and I didn't have it

My narcissistic mother swooped in and paid the whole lot off on the condition I paid her back (which was fair enough)

I started paying her back at £150/200 a week (early 2000)

I had very poor mental health at the time due to postnatal depression and was going through hell with my ex,so I just paid it and was glad to be chipping away at the figure

Then it would be 'you couldn't afford important item/school trip/whatever,so I've paid it and I'll tack it to what you owe me'

I paid her back well over 50k (8k was the debt and the rest the other bits)

Dp and I sat down and worked out I'd overpaid by at least 30k minimum (if not a lot more,i think it was more 80k but i cant prove it)

I'm not thick at all,im very wary of scams-but until you've been the scapegoat,then you'll never understand it-plus your mum wouldn't con you?

Would she?

Mine doesn't see she did anything wrong and I'd still be paying it off 24 years later if I hadn't have gone nc with her-shes more bothered about losing my money than she is about losing me and the grandchildren

Yes, a couple of people, long time ago. One man, one woman, plus a couple who had near misses. Would be scammers are all over social media and often come out with the same patter.

I'm about due my annual Amazon Prime signup 'scam'. You have to be so careful at checkout not to sign up!

I had the same with Marie Curie, would ring me up in the evenings and ask for more money so I just cancelled my DD altogether.

I remember a few years back on the news there was a lady (in Bristol I think) took her own life, when her family were going through her things it turned out she was hugely in debt due to paying out thousands in DDs to charities who had hounded her, her house was full of begging letters and calls showed they'd been relentless in pursuing her for more and more money. I remember her poor family on the news trying to get something done to protect vulnerable people from charities that do this.

A former colleague was email fished an investment deal.
Thinking it looked okay, he sent £500 and got £750 back a week or so later.
Then he sent £1k and got £1500 back, so £750 in profit.
Then he just figured it was probably dodgy so stopped and deleted all of his details.
Whoever it was sent him hundreds and hundreds of emails threatening all sorts if he didn't give the money back.
He had to set up a whole new email account.

A lad at work who has autism, let’s call him John. He’s desperate for a girlfriend bless him and goes all in on any woman who is even remotely nice to him. There was one woman came to work here temporarily, long story short he married her within about a month. She moved into his flat along with her male “cousin” and they shared the bed while John slept on the sofa. She got him to add her name to the flat, and gave up her job, the cousin never had one, so both lived off him. Finally his family managed to intervene, and he went back to live with his mother and got a divorce, but the wife/cousin kept his flat and the vast majority of the contents. Utter cunts.

The other one was my uncle. He fell for some guff about a long lost relative dying leaving millions, and uncle was of course the sole beneficiary. He was all set to transfer £10,000 for fees, the bank put a stop to it thank god, but not before he’s sent them copies of his passport, birth certificate driving licence etc.

My uncle was in his mid 50s at the time, running his own very successful business so nothing like the usual vulnerable type.

What is this scam?

My God, that is just awful

@UhOhhhhh it was online only, messages plus some delightful pics of a silver fox 'Norwegian architect' called Björn. I have absolutely no excuse, I'm really not so unbelievably naive as a rule. I can track some issues that made me a bit more vulnerable at that time - it was less than two years after the death of my husband, and about 4 weeks after the death of the elderly scammed relative I mentioned, and i was juggling a lot of sadmin and crap. 'Björn' sent me some flowery nice messages and i latched on to them. I was also taking some other stupid risks at the time, i think for the adrenaline hit, which is normally the opposite of the person i am (I'm usually nervous of bridges and never watch 18 certificate movies). It just shows that it's not just a few people who can be vulnerable to this.

A slightly freaky coincidence was that the amount I sent 'him' was exactly the amount that my elderly scammed relative left in the bank at his death (he'd been in hospital a week or two and his state pension was in there).

Know someone that paid for a camper van that they had seen on the Internet. They never saw the van in person. They requested the van to be delivered, but the van never arrived. The scam was reported to the police.

There are loads of scammers selling " the dream van lifestyle" & if you watch the adverts regularly, you can pick out the scams.

ExDP's cousin who is in her 80s was scammed out of tens of thousands. It was the one where they call from the 'bank' and tell you that you need to transfer your money into another account to keep it safe.