Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
“My dad is a big strong man. He was a sergeant major and would never let anyone fool him like this, so he is in tears for being so gullible”
A DISABLED elderly couple lost thousands of pounds of savings after they were targeted by devious fraudsters posing as Amazon staff.
Distraught Morag and Michael Thompson, both 78, were called by scammers last week and tricked into giving them access to their computer and bank accounts.
The incident has left the couple, from St Mary’s, in tears, and after calling the police they discovered 17 other people had also fallen victim to the scam.
Their daughter Michele, 54, said: “Dad got a phone call from a company saying they were Amazon, but they were not.
“They told him to go upstairs to his computer and put in a code, and after he did that they were able to take over his computer.
“They set up a loan in my mum’s Bank of Scotland account for £4,000 and took £100 out of my dad’s TSB account.
“Then they wanted dad to go into his bank branch and transfer this £4,000 into another account.
“My parents are both disabled, so dad told them he couldn’t do that, but then they got really aggressive with him and kept phoning him continually.
“My dad is a big strong man. He was a sergeant major and would never let anyone fool him like this, so he is in tears for being so gullible.
“They are elderly and have both been shielding, so they were just happy to have someone to talk to.
“He never said anything to us at first because he thought they were genuine.”
Michele and her parents want to raise awareness to make sure no one else falls victim to this new scam.
She continued: “We need to make people aware of this because there are elderly, vulnerable people sitting on their own and they have no one to speak to, and they can be scammed within seconds.
“Thankfully both bank accounts have been shut down and they have a new phone number which is good – TSB and the Bank of Scotland have been absolutely fantastic in dealing with it.