How a sinister new twist on those phone call scams cost Jenny £4,000

THE owner of a small hair salon has been duped out of £4,000 after being tricked into believing that bailiffs were about to burst into her business.

In a fiendish new twist on the phone scams sweeping Britain, Jenny Tofts was duped by supposed court officials who rang out of the blue and then, over the course of an afternoon, persuaded her to make a payment to call them off.

‘It was so unbelievably convincing,’ says Jenny. ‘The caller knew a lot about me and my salon. When I was sternly told that bailiffs were well within their rights to come and collect items from the salon while I was working there, I panicked.’

Over the past 12 months, phone frauds have trebled, with £24 million lost to scams last year. Typically, conmen cold call victims and convince them they are being contacted by the police or their bank.

They play on the fears of the victim, then dupe them into transferring money out of their account — and into that of the crooks. But as this fraud — known as ‘ vishing’ — has soared, so too has awareness of it. And so criminals are increasingly trying out new tricks.

It was a busy Tuesday afternoon in Jenny’s Affinity hair salon in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, and staff were rushed off their feet. Jenny had to step away from a customer to take a phone call from someone claiming to be a High Court sheriff. The 36-yearold, who has owned the salon for six years, had never spoken to a legal official before.

The man on the line, who s ai d hi s name was Jonathan Stevens, told Jenny that he was overseeing a county court judgment case against her business, which was being brought against her by a firm who claimed they were owed money for online advertising — did she know anything about it?

Jenny had tried advertising her salon on the internet in 2013, but it hadn’t worked very well. She’d paid for it, and then given up.

Now, though, Jonathan told her, she apparently owed another £1,975.12 and the case against her was being heard that minute. If she didn’t pay up, bailiffs would be round to the salon sharpish.

Jonathan t hen provided a website address, so that Jenny could look up the firm who were allegedly taking the action against her. ‘When he threatened the business, I just went i nto shock, ’ she says.

‘I’ve worked so hard to build this salon up and he was threatening to come i n and take goods while customers were there. I felt sick to my stomach.’ She paid the £1,975.12 there and then over the internet.

But, 40 minutes later, Jonathan rang back. He said her bank had recalled the payment and that she would have to make the transfer again. This time, he advised that she transfer the money to a different account — just in case her bank rejected it again.

‘At first, I said no — there was no way I was paying it again,’ says Jenny. ‘But again, he made it sound frightening. He said that, to the bailiffs, it looked like I had cancelled the payment and that they would come round if they didn’t receive the money.

‘In the salon, it was busy and I didn’t have the time to fully appreciate what was happening.’

It was only when her work finished a few hours later that Jenny had chance to think about what she’d done. At 7.30pm, she rang her bank, Halifax, which said it would investigate.

Last week, Halifax refunded £725 — the total amount that it had recovered from the fraudsters’ bank accounts, but this still left Jenny more than £3,000 out of pocket. With five staff and her rent to pay, Jenny was forced to take out a loan just to cover her Tricked: Salon owner Jenny Tofts handed over nearly £4,000 business essentials. Under the rules, banks have to refund fraudulent payments unless they are able to prove that their customer has acted in a negligent way.

But because transferring money directly to another person’s account is akin to handing money over to someone on the street, banks can offer little protection if you authorise a transaction.

A spokesman for the British Banking Association says: ‘If it is proven there has been a fraudulent transaction, the bank will usually make sure there is a full refund of any money stolen.’

After Money Mail contacted Halifax, the bank decided to investigate the case and has now agreed to reimburse Jenny the remaining £3,225 she lost.

A Halifax spokesman says: ‘ We are very sorry to hear Miss Tofts was targeted by fraud by social engineering.

‘We have decided to refund Miss Tofts in full due to her being given the wrong information when she first contacted the bank about this issue. We would also like to apologise f or any distress or inconvenience caused.’

Katy Worobec, director of Financial Fraud Action UK says: ‘Fraudsters are always coming up with new twists on a theme and this is the first we’ve heard of it.

‘Always treat calls that come out of the blue as suspicious, especially if the caller’s request will involve you making a payment.

‘If you are unsure of who you’re talking to, take their name, hang up and call them back — but not on the number they provide.

‘Instead, ring them on a publicly available number, such as a switchboard, and ask to be put through — that way, you know who you are talking to.’