THEY TOOK IT ALL
£50m ‘bank’ fraud victims tell how scammers struck
VICTIMS of a £50million fraud targeting 70,000 Britons have told how they lost their life savings to scammers who played on their “fears and anxieties”.
Scotland Yard has made 120 arrests and shut down iSpoof.cc in the biggest operation of its kind in the UK.
Scammers paid to use the website that let them fool victims into thinking they were calling from banks such as Barclays, NatWest and Halifax.
Italian-born Michele Bucci said he lost everything in his Metro Bank accounts.
He said: “I gave away my life savings of £5,000 to a scammer who knew all my details. English is not my first language – they caught me off-guard and played straight into my fears and anxieties.
“I ended up transferring all my money into a new Metro Bank account, after they had me convinced that mine was under threat if I didn’t move it.”
He added: “It was all I had. I am not sure how I am going to survive.”
A mum said she believes her vulnerable daughter was on a “suckers’ list”. The woman, who asked not to be named, said: “The caller said her bank account had been compromised. “She wasn’t sure but panicked as they said it was urgent and criminals could access her money. She transferred £5,000, all her savings.” A total of 70,000 potential victims will have been texted by the Met Police by the end of today asking them to make contact. But Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley acknowledged it was “slightly bizarre” to be asking people who have been scammed to respond to an SMS.
He said: “We’re encouraging people to actually go on to the Met Police website and they’ll find the shortcuts and links there to report this.”