Conned on the Costa... Quo star falls for £2,000 frying pan fraud
AFTER years of rock ’n’ roll excess and two divorces costing him millions, it ’ s no surprise Rick Parfitt finds it hard to pass up a chance to save a bob or two.
But the Status Quo guitarist ’s hunger for a bargain has come back to bite him – and wife Lyndsay – after both were swindled by conmen claiming to be selling luxury kitchenware.
The couple were duped out of more than £2,000 within days of each other by crooks posing as Swiss salesmen ‘in slick suits’ and driving ‘luxury BMWs’ near their home on the Costa del Sol.
They bought what they believed were high-end kitchen products only to find they were cheap pots and pans made in China. The 66-year - old rocker was duped into shelling out £1,064 for the kitchenware, after being approached by the men during a trip to the nearby town of Guadalmina.
It was only when he returned to his Marbella mansion and unpacked the boxes he realised the pots, pans and cutlery were nothing more than ‘a load of old tosh’.
Unbelievably, Mrs Parfitt, 56, had also fallen for exactly the same trick and lost the same amount of money after being approached by the same group of men just two days before, during an outing to Nueva Andalucia.
The pair, who were not in the same home at the time, have now called in the police. Speaking out to warn others of the con, Mrs Parfitt said: ‘I cannot believe we both fell for it.
‘Neither of us are stupid or gullible, so it just goes to show how profes - sional these guys are, very good at their act.’
Mrs Parfitt, who works as a fitness instructor, said the men approach their targets in a car park and claim to have leftover stock from a nearby exhibition, which they are willing to sell for a cut price because they can ’t transport it back to Switzerland.
‘When they start loading the boxes into the boot of your car it all looks legitimate. It is only when you get home that you realise you’ve bought a lot of cheap rubbish.’
Always on the lookout for a bargain, the Parfitts married in Gibraltar in 2006 in a £46 ceremony. They now split their time in Spain between homes in Alhaurin el Grande and Marbella.
Status Quo sold more than 130million records, earning Parfitt an estimated £10million fortune.
But he has revealed he blew hundreds of thousands on drink and drugs, at one time claiming he was spending £1,000-a-week on cocaine in the Eighties.
He estimates his two divorces from Marietta Boeker and second wife Patty cost him £3million.