Pensioner loses £270k after being conned by scammers

A MAN in his 70s was conned out of £270,000 by phone scammers, it emerged last night.

North Wales Police revealed the pensioner unwittingly enabled a bogus caller to transfer the cash into fraudulent accounts.

The caller had told him the two banks he used were involved in a fraud case and it would be safer to transfer his savings into another account.

Police are using the case to highlight financial fraud, and warning people to be on their guard.

PC David Hall, of North Wales Police, said the force was dealing with ‘several calls every day’. Fraudsters typically target people via email and phone calls as well as by letter and in person.

The elderly victim, from north- east Wales and who does not want to be identified, unwittingly handed over £270,000, Mr Hall said.

A fraudulent £25,000 loan application was also made using his details.

Criminals often trick people into passing their banks’ scrutiny checks by giving them the prompts to answer their questions before their money was transferred.

Mr Hall told the BBC: ‘This victim was absolutely devastated when the horrible truth dawned. The scammer promised the money would be returned to his account once the spoof investigation was completed but, of course, it never was. At no point during those couple of weeks did the victim suspect anything was wrong.’