‘A cyber hacker stole my 17-year-old son’s £7k disability benefit’

QI have been having issues with Barclays after a sum of £7,000 inexplicably disappeared from my 17- year- old son’s bank account last spring.

I had been fighting for him to receive Personal Independence Payment ( Pip) from the Government and eventually he won an appeal, resulting in him receiving backdated payments totalling £7,000 in March 2023.

My son had never had this much money in his account before. He lacks confidence with all things financial and always comes to me for advice if he’s unsure about anything. At around the same time my husband was seriously ill and was placed on life support. I was spending a lot of time in the hospital with him. We have three children, all with special needs, so it was a challenging time, to say the least.

In April, unbeknown to me, chunks of money started leaving my son’s account. He did not receive any notifications about this from Barclays. I only realised when a letter came in June last year, indicating that a direct debit wasn’t paid owing to lack of funds. The account, which should have contained nearly £7,000, was virtually empty.

The rogue payments, of which there were dozens, ranged from £10 to £500, and took place over a two- month period. Most of the money was paid to a handful of bank accounts belonging to people that none of us have ever heard of. I know my son and he has not transferred this money. He has not benefited in any way from the transactions that someone has cleverly managed to make from his account, without his knowledge. I know this because I have asked him and he denies it. Owing to learning difficulties he suffers with, he is unable to lie. He is also not capable of pulling something like this off as he never made a transfer before. He simply does not know how to transfer funds to another account.

My son banks through the Barclays app on his phone, and I believe someone has remotely accessed his device to steal the money. I have reported it to Barclays, but it has refused to refund a penny. I am at the end of my tether. My husband, who was healthy and well before March, is now disabled and requires support. I have no idea how to get this money back. Can you help?

– Anon

Dear Reader

AI was so sorry to hear about the difficult set of circumstances you have had to put up with. Money is tight, and this issue with your son’s Pip going missing was so much to cope with on top of your husband being seriously ill. I asked you to send me your son’s bank statements over the period in question, as well as direct permission from him to discuss the case with Barclays. These were promptly provided.

Your son had held this account for some time, but looking at the statements, the first time he had used mobile phone banking after it was set up with fingerprint ID security in September 2022, was on March 20 2023. This was the very same day that the first rogue payment for £ 10 was made, and only eight days before he received the large £7,000 Pip payment. Six days before the payment was made there were two £5 payments made via an instant payment app called Cash App, to two female names.

Then, once the payment was received, there were multiple payments to what Barclays has confirmed were gaming apps, via Google Play. On the same day that eight small payments of less than £2 were made to these apps, a £10 transfer was made to a bank account, the reference for which was similar to your local shop. However, it had been spelled with a typo and it was a different account. This suggested that whoever made this transfer must have come up with the name as a disguise for its true purpose.

After this in April, the payments really ramped up, with multiple transfers being made per day, ranging between £20 and £500 in size leaving your son’s account for various other bank accounts, but mainly a Monzo account belonging to a man. Towards the end, total payouts of over £1,000 per day were leaving your son’s account. The transfers only stopped when your son had run out of money and you were alerted.

Your son denies any knowledge of these payments and claims not to have checked his bank account for the duration of the scam. He doesn’t understand bank statements and is incapable of making transfers, you say.

Barclays says it can find no evidence of fraud on your son’s account, but you are adamant that his money was stolen without his knowledge. Having investigated his case in depth, I think the truth lies somewhere else.

You think someone hacked his phone remotely, but to me this seems virtually impossible. I wonder whether you may have underestimated your son’s capabilities here. I say this because Barclays has confirmed that all the rogue payments were made from his mobile device, which only he could log into using his fingerprint as security. Of course, there is always the possibility that he has given someone else access to his phone, but he denies this. Given the frequency of the payments, it seems unlikely someone else other than your son made them.

So if your son did make the payments, what were they for? I think the answer may be a scam, but if so, where did it all begin? A screenshot you provided from his Snapchat provides a potential explanation. He appeared to be chatting to a woman who was asking him for his Cash App details, although we don’t know what exactly for. Cash App is a financial services app through which you can buy high risk investments like cryptocurrency. I wonder whether someone may have chatted to him online, got wind of his £7k windfall, and set him up with an account. After the Pip windfall came through, he visited some gaming apps to take advantage of “free spins”. I wonder whether this was encouraged by the scammer, who was whetting his appetite for risk and, ultimately, priming him for what was to come next: “investing” in cryptocurrency.

Had Barclays properly scrutinised your son’s accounts it would have found the strongest clue yet that whoever made these bank transfers believed they were buying cryptocurrency (although they likely weren’t). Most of the references listed on the transfers contained one of three codes: KLO, LPP and HE. When I realised these were all code names for various types of cryptocurrency ( Kalao, Linear Power Point, and

Heroes and Empires), I asked you if I could ask your son, who is now 18, about my theory, to which you agreed.

I explained to him that if he had been the victim of a scam in which he had been tricked into transferring money, that he would have my full sympathy and support. However he continued to deny all knowledge of anything.

I may be barking up the wrong tree here, and there may be another explanation for everything. But I know how hard it can be for victims to speak out, as they often feel a deep sense of embarrassment. If your son did fall for something like this and unwittingly handed his Pip money to a criminal while your husband was critically ill in hospital, he would likely feel a crushing sense of shame. He would be desperate not to upset or anger you. This is heartbreaking to imagine because, having heard you defend your son ferociously for weeks on end, I can see you would stand by him with every fibre of your being, no matter what misjudgments he had made.

Because the payments are still shrouded in mystery, I’m afraid Barclays still isn’t prepared to refund your son’s £7,000, and there’s no more I can do to help. I’ve made clear to both of you that my door is always open for a confidential chat. Since you uncovered the scam your son has relinquished his access to his online banking and now survives on cash, which you withdraw on his behalf. No more rogue payments have left his account, you say.

You’ve finally informed Barclays about his “vulnerable” status, which it says it wasn’t previously aware of, and I’ve advised you to set up his account so you can monitor all his transactions.

A Barclays spokesman said: “This claim has been thoroughly investigated and we cannot find evidence of fraudulent activity on the account.

“We have every sympathy for our customer, and we encourage them to inform the police to ensure that the matter is investigated and the perpetrators are brought to justice.” *