Grandmother aged 91 who lost her home. Cancer victim who wasted £30,000 on useless cures. Ex-soldier fleeced as he lay in his hospital bed. All victims of the conmen who peddle bogus pills with help of Royal Mail
Dementia gran lost her home at 91
GRANDMOTHER Anna Greig had to sell her house and move into a nursing home after she lost £70,000 through scams.
The 91-year-old dementia sufferer began ordering thousands of pills after receiving letters that claimed she had won a prize cheque – and could speed up its delivery by ordering products from the scam catalogues.
Soon Mrs Greig was sending off cheques almost every day to claim her ‘prize’, which she wanted to pass on to her children and grandchildren.
She would hide boxes full of the pills – including ‘shark’s cartilage’ and a formula for ‘sharp ears’ – from her family, hoping she would soon surprise her children with her winnings. But in 2008 her son James became suspicious when she could not pay her builder for the annexe being built on her Bradford home.
To his horror, he discovered she had spent nearly all her life savings on scams – sending £5,000 to one lottery scammer in Canada alone. ‘I was devastated,’ he said. ‘The £25,000 for the building work was gone, and she had been borrowing large sums from her bank and building society as well as on her credit cards.
‘I discovered mum had also taken out various loans to send money to these scammers. Her overall debt was now around £70,000.’
Mr Greig moved in with his mother, confiscated her cheque books and intercepted scam mail.
But he said ‘the rows and disagreements continued. She was still convinced that just one more payment would land her a fortune’.
Mr Greig, 63, explained that his mother, who is a devout Christian, ‘is a very honest woman’.
‘She believes when people make promises they should stand,’ he said.
‘ This belief caused her to trust the scammers over and over again.’
Mrs Greig is now in a nursing home with early stage dementia.
After spending nearly £70,000 through scams she had to sell her home. Mr Greig added: ‘My mum is still very hurt that there will be no inheritance for her children and grandchildren. She still doesn’t fully understand the enormity of what happened to her wealth.’
Veteran desperate to ease leg pain
JAMES HORKIN, 91, was conned into spending £800 a month on medicines he hoped would ease his terrible leg and back pain.
Mr Horkin – who served as an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment during the war – also suffered from the blood cancer non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which caused him difficulty when swallowing.
His desperation to alleviate his pain made him an easy target for scammers, who hounded him for more than 15 years. At the height of the scam, he was losing £800 a month, and his family fear he gave more than £90,000 to the scammers overall.
The father-of-two, who died last month, was first lured into buying the products with scam letters that promised he would win a TV. They told him ordering products in the catalogue would speed up the prize.
Soon Mr Horkin was placing orders worth hundreds of pounds – and taking the medicines against the advice of his GP.
Among the bogus remedies he was conned into buying were a ‘pain-relieving’ gel he
was told to rub into his legs – which caused him to have a bad fall – and ginseng extract contained in glass ampules, which cut his hands as he broke them open. He spent £600 alone on tablets that were supposed to cure his pain while swallowing – with his family throwing out 60 boxes after he died.
‘We told him it was a scam but the letters were so convincing that he was completely drawn in,’ said his daughter Liz Horkin, a retired nurse. ‘They were bombarding him with letters demanding he buy more and more ... They are just criminals.’
Miss Horkin said her ‘independent’ father was ‘no fool’, but added: ‘Sadly he did become more gullible due to frailty ... and he was quite trusting, as many old people are.
‘The people behind the scams are criminals and he was just utterly manipulated.’
After his death, Mr Horkin’s daughter realised two of the scam catalogue companies had even taken money from his account while he was in hospital
‘He certainly wasn’t ordering anything as he was in hospital,’ she said. ‘About £220 was taken at that time. We have reported it.’
She said there should be a way to divert scam mail away from vulnerable older people to their next of kin. ‘When you think of children, they are removed from their home if there is even the slightest suspicion of abuse,’ she said. ‘But the elderly are just as vulnerable to abuse like this – and there is nothing to protect them.’
Cancer victim spent £30K on bogus cures
OVER three years, Donald Davies sent between £20,000 and £30,000 to scammers who tout bogus health supplements.
His family battled to stop him but nothing would convince the ‘brainwashed’ pensioner that he had fallen victim to a con.
The former ambulance driver sometimes received more than 100 scam letters a day. Before his death aged 79 from prostate cancer two years ago, Mr Davies bought thousands of useless products – including lotions, tablets and tinned food– which filled his entire garage.
Like many victims, he was lured into buying them by claims he had won a cash prize that would materialise if he ordered the remedies. Believing the letters were genuine, he started to send money, and was soon losing around £1,000 every month.
Then, after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, desperate Mr Davies started sending money for bogus ‘prostate tablets’ recommended by one company.
His family fear these may have interfered with medication he was prescribed by his doctor.
Many ‘health’ products were from vital Nature, a company run by multi-million- aire Stephan Alech. Among them was a so- called ‘anti-itch’ lotion for £16.89, antiageing tablets for £17.88 and Lutein XStrength for £17.89, which can be dangerous in large doses.
Mr Davies’ daughter-in-law Julie said she had daily battles with her father-in-law, who lived with his wife in Bridgend, Wales, and even tried to intercept the cheques he sent – but he refused to listen.
‘This is a man who wouldn’t stop for a cup of tea at a service station because it’s too expensive,’ she said.
‘But at the same time, he’s spending a fortune ordering these useless products. He was brainwashed.
‘It was so sad to watch because we were seeing our dad getting hurt, but we couldn’t do anything about it.
‘He was so taken in by it all that he would trust them over his own family.’
Husband hooked on ‘memory pills’
FOrMEr soldier ray Kaye and his wife Paula are ‘living in poverty’ due to the scam letters.
Mr Kaye, who served in the royal Signals for 22 years, receives at least a dozen letters a day telling him he has won a huge cash prize and must order goods to claim it. He suffers from memory problems and attends a dementia group, and when he saw that one of the products claimed to improve memory he instantly began ordering it.
However, the ‘memory pills’ in question have no ingredients or instructions on their packaging, and it is not known what they contain.
Mr Kaye, 76, has lost his life savings, and he and Mrs Kaye are ‘living in poverty’, with barely enough to cover their rent and bills.
Mrs Kaye, 78, has pleaded with her ‘hooked’ husband to stop sending money to the scammers to no avail. She said: ‘He hides it from me but I know he’s still doing it.’
The couple’s friends have also tried to stop him – but the scammers tell him to ignore them. Former neighbour Cheryl Hammond, 45, said: ‘People don’t realise how powerful the messages are – they are experts in getting into people’s heads and the letters are so personal.
‘People like ray are being mugged in their own home on a daily basis, yet there’s nothing we can do about it.’
Mr Kaye said: ‘I’m awful. I once had a very good bank balance but I’m depleting it because of these letters.
‘I know they’re terrible. But if I stop now, I definitely won’t get any money back.’