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

Have you seen the latest AI intervention to keep scammers busy and not scamming. It's very clever. A better use of AI I feel.

@protectthesmallones that's brilliant 👏

Did anyone each scam interceptors (love this programme) where they had the Donny Osmond deep fake?? It really was quite scarily real looking

As PP warned above, watch out for moving day scammers. My clued up friend fell for the post office text scam in moving day and they cleared out her account

Friend of my Mum, lived in a small group of leasehold cottages. The freeholder just collected a peppercorn rent so the leaseholders, as is usual in such circumstances, had their own communal fund into which they all paid a certain amount each month for upkeep of common areas and other maintenance. The woman who administered it kept coming up with new ideas and asking for more and more additional payments - of course, she had developed a shopping addiction, had got into debt, and was dipping into the communal fund.

She probably took a couple of thousand off each of her neighbours, although some didn't make all of the extra payments. My Mum's friend was most upset that she got ostracised for loudly calling this woman a thief and an arsehole as apparently everyone else felt sorry for her!

@OnTheBoardwalk what is that one please?

DC is buying a house so would like to forewarn them

I know someone who was stung by an ESTA website thing, where you think you're on the correct website but really it's a site that will help you complete the form but charge you £500 rather than £20 or whatever the usual fee is.

It always surprises me how people have access to so much money to give to scammers.

By a builder. He’d done some work in our house previously (attic conversion and bathroom) and had done both perfectly and for a really good price so when we were planning to get some other work done we obviously had him as first choice. Also to say he’d done work for another neighbour who again was really happy with the job. Luckily wasn’t a massive job but he asked for money upfront to buy materials etc. We paid him 4K and the only thing we got were the new upstairs doors which cost about €1500. Then kept changing the date he was due to start the job and never delivered the rest of the stuff he was supposed to purchase. It went on for months always some excuse until we just decided ti get someone else to complete the work and cut our losses with the money. We did consider pursuing him legally but for the amount involved wasn’t really worthwhile.

Also nearly fell for a banking scam. Was a few years ago but what threw me was I received a text from a number the bank had contacted me on previously. Had it saved in my phone as AIB customer care. Contained a link which when I clicked on it looked exactly like my online banking and was so close to adding my details

On the builder also to say DH thinks he did it as the attic conversion he did wasn’t as profitable as he initially thought. He was about €5K cheaper than another quote we had gotten and he made a few comments about in hindsight he would have charged us more as it was more costly than he’s anticipated. So we think when we hired him to do the other job he used it as a way to recoup his money

Like anybody is going to fall for that... or do they?!

I mean, you may jokingly call your mum in a silly mood and say "Salutations, mother dearest, 'tis your eldest!" or similar - but who on earth is going to be wanting to be silly and jokey when they're panicking because their phone has just been nicked?

Yep, a friend of mine met a woman online who was supposedly living in a different city in the UK, and studying something very clever sounding. He went on and on about her and after a while I though, wow! She sounds amazing - I'd love to see a picture.

They were honestly the most obvious catfish pictures I've ever seen. She looked like a model, photoshopped into oblivion, in staged and posed photos (nothing that looked candid, no selfies). Very gently, I suggested doing a reverse image search. He did so and was incensed when it came up with the account of an Instagram model with hundreds of thousands of followers, based in Singapore.

But, bless him, he still thought she was just keeping things from him rather than catfishing him. "She obviously thinks I'd judge her for posing in skimpy outfits for other men" (and lol, he totally did).

Anyway, after a serious talk about being very careful about who you trust online, (while trying not to bruise his ego by saying "mate, look at her, don't be daft"), I thought he'd got the message.

A few weeks later he confessed that she'd somehow convinced him to go in on some crypto investment thingy. I honestly didn't understand it myself, but he found out lightening fast that it was a scam. He lost about £10k and was then genuinely confused when she stopped replying to him.

Whoever it was played the long game, as the relationship was built over several months and he really trusted her. He confided in her about family stuff, all sorts. Had some bonkers story to explain why she was studying biochemistry or whatever in the UK whilst also being a full time model in Singapore.

He was so lovestruck and then completely humiliated, poor thing. I tried.

After reading these horror stories i have never been so glad in my life to be skint as fuck. Nobody can scam money out of me as i dont bloody have any. I live pay packet to pay packet. Well they probably have a window of about a week after pay day for about £300 but thats it.

Romance scammer - I need £500 to fly over to see you

Me - well i can manage a tenner.

My Mum's friend was most upset that she got ostracised for loudly calling this woman a thief and an arsehole as apparently everyone else felt sorry for her!

Happens all the time, @stuckdownahole
Different circumstances, by my example was the PTA treasurer who nicked all the funds and bought off the Chair's suggestion of involving the police with the usual sob story and a promise to return it in instalments (which naturally never arrived)

Incredibly, when I later attended a boot sale there, they'd got her collecting the pitch fees and you should have heard the fuss when some insisted on handing it to the Chair instead

It's so easy to happen. I have twice almost been scammed by scams related to o2. In one, they said my card wasn't working and to click... and i nearly did as I had, in fact, recently changed bank cards. Then I remembered that it was a different account that I pay O2 from!

the second one was one of those "upgrade" calls and I was leaning towards actualyl doing it but then they wanted the text code... and I realised.

I am actually considering cancelling my o2 account because not only have I had multiple scam attempts related to my O2 account (only 2 I've nearly fallen for but loads more) they clearly sell my number to anyone and everyone - I get roughly a call a week from different companies wanting me to upgrade my phone. They're all legit sub-companies but i tpisses me off. This thread might be the final straw - DS\ phone is on my account too and DH and I are keen to move get him a new phone for CHristmas so maybe this is the incentive I need!

Also, FIL has been scammed quite a few times. DH always finds it weird - his dad is notorious for being the least trusting person in the world. He's also convinced that people are out to get him.... and yet, he's th eone who gets scammed the most! You'd think he'd apply more of his suspicions to his life.

I have it on good authority that when large transactions are queried customers will often insist that it goes ahead. Banks are not insurance against bad decisions, if they were to impose rules about transferring one's own money then there would be many posts here and elsewhere about the injustice of it all. I feel very sorry for people who are scammed but the banks can't be held responsible.

I've had a couple of those, after expressing my horror and how worried I was as an elderly woman I eventually asked how the weather was in Calcutta or could I order a prawn curry. They hung up pretty sharpish.

My DH was scammed in the summer. He has bipolar disorder and I hadn't spotted quickly enough that he was lapsing into a (happily infrequent) episode. He'd got massively obsessed with Facebook and was adding friends all over the place - people he didn't know and had never heard of. At least one of these was a scammer who had him chasing round loads of local - and not so local- shops buying Apple vouchers to send the codes. They'd been luring him with all sorts of nonsense including loved up messages plus getting him involved with a huge sting to catch criminals (!) I twigged when he was clearly very unwell and DD offered to come and help me with appointments and he confessed to her that he'd done all this with the vouchers. We lost about £2500. I was spitting feathers as you can imagine, but there was nothing to be done as he had sworn blind to the people selling the vouchers that it was a genuine purchase. The sods can spot vulnerability a mile off.

He's a highly intelligent Cambridge educated retired civil servant.

I know someone - an apparently intelligent woman in her 40s who fell for the ‘ this is your bank, someone is trying to commit fraud and we need you to move it to this new account ‘ one. £40,000 - almost all of it from a horrible divorce. We, in her wider friendship group, were shocked that she would fall for it as it was already quite publicised though just before the banks took greater effort to stop individual transactions like that.

There are a lot of HMRC scams when you start a new business.

DH opened a new company as he had to, he's not overly business savvy but in order to work under the "umbrella" of his professional body he needed to set up as self employed.

Everyone who opens a business is registered and their details available to all.

His business address is also our home address.

The amount of official looking letters and demands for registration and dd or just one off payments were astounding. And NONE of them were real. Luckily for DH I was in a previous life an Accountant and also well used to setting up companies for various reasons. If I'd not been there or had he registered his company at his office address he would have easily paid the majority of these "bills" as they looked completely legitimate.

One to look out for. Registration of a company is an online fee of £50. That's it, any other paperwork that comes in the next few weeks or months is by scammers which have found out that a new company has just been formed and are looking out for naive people. It's easy to be inexperienced in this area, you don't need to be a financial expert to start a company.

Yep, a neighbour (retired policeman) was scammed out of tens of thousands by an Irish "traveller" over several months. He was basically "groomed" in a long term confidence trick scam.

It started when he wanted his garden clearing of weeds, lawn mowed, flowers de-headed and shrubs pruned. He always did it himself but couldn't do it one year as he had a hip replacement and couldn't bend etc for a few months. The guy gave him a reasonable quote and then turned up with a few lads and blitzed the garden in a couple of hours and did a really good job, all for a couple of hundred pounds. That gave the neighbour some "faith" that the guy wasn't a con-merchant.

He needed some other bits and pieces doing, i.e. replacing some rotten wood on his garage, replacement drainpipe etc., and same happened, guy came, gave a reasonable quote, did the work quickly and up to standard, got paid and went again.

The neighbour was happy so he contacted him again a bit later to repaint the exterior of his house. Guy came, again, reasonable quote, etc., so got the go ahead. Put a scaffolding tower up, did the painting, all good. Then it started. The guy said he'd "noticed" a few broken tiles on the roof and would neighbour like him to take a look and replace them. OK. But then he said he needed scaffolding to go on the roof, so he got someone to come give a quote - £2k. Seemed a lot but neighbour accepted it. Scaffolding went up, and the guy came back, then it was lots of sighs etc and he came down to say it was all shot - offered to take the neighbour up the ladder to look for himself - obviously the neighbour couldn't but as there'd been trust built up, he fell for it. £40k for a new roof - yes expensive he explained, but it's better quality tiles, wood underneath and a load of bull about "compliant" insulation otherwise he wouldn't be able to sell the house.

Of course, there was no new roof. The guy just took a few installments of the money, spent a bit of time up on the roof over a few days, and then disappeared.

Not anything serious, fortunately.

Last Christmas, DSis used a dodgy website to buy stamps for sending her Christmas cards. They turned out to all be fakes. She was probably out £20 or so.

I had a friend who was scammed out of £28k over 3 different scams from 3 different people.

2 were deposits on apartments (we live in Scandinavia and it’s not unusual for rental deposits to be 6 months worth of rent in an already high rent country). She was desperate and paid deposits before seeing the “apartment”

And a 3rd when she was extremely vulnerable after that and someone led her to believe they could make all her money back on bitcoin.

Fucking awful

Ha. Yes, me by proxy as my then ex DH were on the periphery of a lonely hearts scam by a serial conman around 2000. He set up his marks via lonely hearts ads in the personals of a particular alternative community's magazine, and someone we knew fell for it. She believed he was working abroad, but he was actually in prison serving his last sentence for doing the same thing.

It all happened on Lancashire and the news reports still exist online. He dud go to prison for it, but apparently there's no way of stopping him. My involvement was because once he'd gotten a non existent inheritance he was going to buy me out of the business I was winding up due to ill health. He lifted stock to sell at markets with my friend, who had taken out loans to buy him a van.

He ended up doing a runner with the contents of their house, tools from a friends garage where he'd been working on a car for her, and another friends blue badge of all things.

He featured on an old episode obmf Channel 4 Love Rats from He'll which I can't find now.

Couple of years later we re-located down South. He'd served his time apparently and bugger me, if he wasn't at a car boot sale in my home town, bold as brass.

I pretty much shouted him out of the place much to the shock if the woman he was with.

Thinking back, we were complete idiots, but everything he said was just plausible enough. I didn't like him personally but my ex DH was all "don't be judgemental" when he'd admitted he'd been in prison eventually but for a fight that had allegedly gotten out of hand. Wish I'd listened to my instincts.

It took 3 goes to get him into court due to angina attacks on the day, once in the foyer of the court. I had some very uncharitable thoughts that day in particular.

Funnily enough, I have a legacy of trust issues and mild paranoia so hopefully I won't get fooled again......

My ex colleague got done out of 80k. She thought she was speaking to her bank.

My stepdad did and a guy I went to uni with did. I don’t know exactly what happened though, wouldn’t want to pry.