A Lloyds Banks customer lost more than £500,000 to scammers who convinced her to ignore warnings from her bank and hand over her life savings.
Alice Allen was contacted by the scammers purporting to be from Lloyds Bank fraud department and then posing as officials from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The fraudsters told her her life savings were at risk as corrupt staff at the bank were attempting to steal her funds, as well as those of other customers – but this was all part of their ploy to get her send them money.
Alice appeared on BBC One’s Rip Off Britain to share her story and warn others about the highly convincing scam.
When Alice was speaking to one of the scammers on the phone posing as an FCA official, she asked for identification and they direct her to the phone number on the group website, which was identical to the one they were using.
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Unfortunately, scammers can use technology to make it appear they are calling from the real number of a legitimate organisation.
The fraudsters kept calling Alice to reassure her everything was OK and to further convince her they were genuine.
They then sent her paperwork in the post, featuring the FCA logo, confirming her money was under threat.
Alice and her husband did have doubts about the situation but they felt pressured into complying with them.
Alice said: “You’re constantly trying to make the right decision and when stress levels are very high, you have to make very quick decisions and you don’t think very clearly.”
The scammers then asked Alice to go to her local bank branch and transfer all her savings into a so-called “safe account” they had set up.
Alice said the scam was very convincing and it was like her mind “was being controlled”. She said was “groomed” into visiting her bank to transfer the funds as they told her what to say if staff raised concerns.
When she went to the bank to make the transfer, staff were very suspicious and called the police while holding off the transfer.
The fraudsters told her she could get around this issue by making daily transfers of £25,000. Alice said the situation was “terrifying” but over the space of three weeks, she transferred over her savings into the “safe account”, which in reality belonged to the fraudsters.
As soon as the funds were moved over, the scammers invested the money in Bitcoin which cannot be traced.
Alice realised she had been scammed when her son came to visit her and noticed the email address used by one of the scammers was fake.
She said: “I just fell apart. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. It was devastating because I knew that I’d lost all that money.”
Alice managed to recoup £98,000 of the money she invested but still lost £427,000 to the scammers.
The FCA would never contact a person and ask for them to transfer funds into another account.
Likewise, a bank or building society would never contact a customer and ask them to transfer funds into a ‘safe account’ or into another account.
Rip Off Britain airs on BBC One on weekdays at 9.15am.
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