We lost £10k to TV licence email scam
... and Nationwide refused to refund the money
A COUPLE have lost their £10,000 life savings in a TV Licence scam after their building society refused to refund the stolen money.
Jerry Tack and his wife Carole were sent an ‘official-looking’ email telling them to renew their licence by filling in an online form and updating bank and phone details.
Two days later, Mr Tack, 65, was called by a man claiming to be from Nationwide, telling him to urgently move money into a ‘safe account’ to protect it from fraudsters.
Mr Tack said he had no reason to feel suspicious at the time and ended up emptying two savings accounts of £4,000 each as well as handing over £1,900 from his current account. Half an hour later, the building society phoned to tell him he had been the victim of fraudsters.
But it refused to refund the money, saying he had willingly given his details in a so-called ‘authorised push payment’ scam.
‘We were left penniless,’ Mrs Tack, 61, from Hampshire, told the BBC. ‘Hubby and me fell out big time over it. I didn’t speak to him for about a week. Christmas was a complete wash-out. I didn’t even put any decorations up, we didn’t feel like it.’ Banks have promised new checks to help prevent customers transferring their money to fraudsters following a Mail campaign against online financial crime.
But conmen are still trying to harvest personal details with a fake form on a website supposedly run by TV Licensing. Another victim, 27-yearold nurse Laura Hodson of Dumfries, Scotland, lost £2,500 after receiving an email saying payment details for her TV licence needed to be updated.
Last week cyber-crime campaign group Action Fraud said it had received more than 5,000 complaints in just three months about such scams, which it said were ‘particularly nasty’.
A Nationwide spokesman said: ‘We’re very sorry our member has been a victim of this cruel scam.
‘Unfortunately, despite warnings generated by our systems, the member gave away details and originated all the transactions into the thirdparty account. We urge people to be cautious.’