I lost £3,500 in sophisticated texting fraud

NICOLAS Dagnall lost more than £3,500 to a fraudster when he got a text ‘from NatWest’ asking him to verify a suspicious transaction.

As he had not made the £1,500 payment in question he called the number included in the message as instructed. He had no reason to doubt it was genuine as it appeared in the same chain as other legitimate texts from the bank. A woman answered the phone claiming to be from the fraud team and asked him security questions.

She claimed other fraudulent payments had been made and said he needed to move his cash into a safe account she had set up in his name.

The fraudster then talked him through transferring cash via online banking. ‘At the end of the call she said I would be sent a letter with a new bank card in a week,’ said composer Mr Dagnall, from London.

Instead a letter arrived saying he had exceeded his overdraft. After calling his bank, he realised he had been scammed. He lost £1,922 of his own money and owed £1,600 to his bank.

NatWest refused to refund Mr Dagnall as he had authorised the transaction but after Money Mail intervened it agreed to refund the money and write off the overdraft.