My mum got caught out this week.
We reported to fraud, we’ll see if we get her money back.
However, the fraudsters called back later in the day pretending to be the banks fraud team. Used a number that had a bank logo as a picture.
They told her to download revolut, as her accounts had been compromised, therefore she needed a new one with revolut. Thankfully she didn’t pass the auto checks with them and it failed.
They called her at 4pm, she was on the phone until 8pm, when she messaged me to say that she’d sent me £1800, could I send it back to a different sort code and account number.
I went round to her house where I then discovered she had given them a photo of the front and back of her Santander card, and driving licence.
They had activated Apple Pay on her phone and tried to get her to buy items worth £2499 with another card.
They got her to use another card in the same way.
She had fraud text messages on her phone from all her banks asking about transactions, where you have to say Y or N, she said yes on about 5 of them… meaning she had said she was trying to buy the items.
Thankfully they didn’t get any money. The fraud protections at the banks stopped all transactions.
Usually my mum is sharp, and smells a rat, but this has devastated her. She wouldn’t have known how to deal with this if I wasn’t there to help. The technological march of banks is sadly making the older generation sitting ducks. There’s no local branch to talk to.
I had heard that this scam is prevalent due to the M&S and Co-op data leaks.
I hope your dad was ok.