My Thursday started like most weekdays with a workout, an early school run, and a walk before opening my laptop.
When my mobile phone rang mid-morning everything changed, not least because £1,200 later disappeared from my bank account. I had become a victim of fraud.
If, like me, you’ve always thought you’d never be fooled by scammers, then I’m proof that even if you think you’ve read a lot about how scammers operate, you can easily be duped become.
Victim: Sadie Nicholas says she felt foolish after being scammed out of £1,200 by phone scammer
Afterwards, you’ll probably (like me) feel foolish, ashamed, furious with yourself, and worried about lost money and passwords or other personal data that could have been compromised.
Despite significant efforts to tackle fraud in the financial sector, £1.17 billion was stolen through fraud in 2023, according to UK Finance, the trade association for the UK banking and financial services industry.
How did I end up earning £1,200 out of pocket?
Let’s go back to that 10:30 a.m. phone call. The man who called me claimed to be a member of Amazon’s fraud investigation team.
My Amazon account had been hacked from an Internet Protocol (IP) address in California, he said, before asking if I had placed iPhones in my Amazon shopping cart without checking out. I didn’t have that.
At this point I should tell you that our internet was down, which immediately put me at a disadvantage.
I had to put it on speaker on my smartphone while I used the same device to log into my Amazon account – and sure enough, there were two iPhones costing £599 and £499 waiting for payment.
Before my eyes, a third iPhone appeared in my shopping cart. My account was hacked in real time, but my gut told me something was wrong.
“Prove who you are,” I snapped and he calmly replied that he would text an Amazon one-time password (OTP) to my cell phone as a security measure.
Within seconds, a four-digit code appeared in a text message from the same Amazon number I’ve received numerous previous text messages from advising of delayed or attempted delivery.
Disruptions by construction workers working in the house that morning added to the chaos.
And that’s exactly when these criminals manage to dupe otherwise smart people like me; if they get lucky and catch you off guard or at a busy or vulnerable time, they send you into a tailspin and, bingo, they have you hooked.
On any other day I would have given the guy short shrift and hung up the phone. Instead, I panicked and made a series of blunders, namely following instructions from him to first download an app called Zoho Customer Assist from the App Store, which he told me would secure my compromised Amazon account.
He then persuaded me to set up what he said was a ‘safe account’ with Revolut (the global financial technology company that was granted a UK banking license in July) to fund the various mainstream bank cards linked to my Amazon account. ‘protect’. I use to pay for goods. I was instructed to deposit money into the Revolut account to pay for any future goods from there.
Reports: The caller targeting Sadie claimed to be a member of Amazon’s fraud investigation team
If I had stopped for a moment to think about this, I would have realized it didn’t make sense and hung up.
Instead he persuaded me to send £599 and £499 for the iPhones and another random payment to the new Revolut account to ‘protect’ that money from the fraudsters who he said had my Amazon account hacked. It would, he assured me, be paid directly into my main bank account.
I received ‘live’ messages purporting to be from the ‘Amazon Secure Server’ telling me that ’90 percent of the work has been completed and we will now refund the money’.
Seconds later I came to my senses and hung up after shouting a few expletives at him.
Panicking, I checked the Revolut account on my phone and saw the money was gone. It was too late. The scammer had created the Revolut account so he would have had access to it all along.
Terrified of what else he might have access to, I immediately closed and deleted the Revolut account and then the Zoho Customer Assist app.
I then reported the incident to Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting center for fraud and cybercrime.
It gave me a crime number and the reassurance that I had fallen for a common and sophisticated scam that has fallen victim to countless other normally alert, intelligent people – including police officers.
One victim of the scam is comedian Simon Evans, who recently shared his own identical experience on social media to warn followers about the Amazon impersonation scam.
His alarm bells rang louder than mine and the moment the criminals sent him a one-time passcode that came from Amazon, he changed his login password and hung up.
Reporting the crime to Amazon by telephone was impossible. Although I did this by email, I never received a response. Communication with Revolut was only possible via email or an online chat in the app.
Supposedly, this is one of the reasons why scammers involve companies like Amazon and Revolut, knowing that their victims won’t be able to quickly call either company to verify whether the person contacting them is real or not.
Targeted: Earlier this month, Action Fraud revealed that Revolut was named in 9,793 fraud reports in the past twelve months, around 2,000 more than Barclays and Lloyds
When I asked Revolut why, a spokesperson told me: ‘By talking to us via chat, our customers can be 100 percent confident that they are connected to a member of our team, rather than a caller who may have a is a scammer.’
Earlier this month, Action Fraud revealed that Revolut had been named in 9,793 fraud reports in the past 12 months, around 2,000 more than Barclays and Lloyds.
The company is now facing questions about the effectiveness of its security controls in detecting suspicious activity on an account.
Revolut has more than nine million UK customers and the company told me: ‘Banks and financial institutions are often the last link in the fraud chain – so by the time the customer makes the transfer, the fraud has already been committed.
“Banks and financial services providers should be the last line of defense against fraud, not the only line of defense.”
Subsequent investigation revealed that my money had been transferred from the Revolut account to an account registered in the name of Manikanta Jannu, a popular name in India.
I needed to speak to someone to adequately convey what had happened and to understand what my options were to try to recover the money, but I was told: ‘We can’t speak to you because you don’t have a Revolut account .’
I didn’t have an account because I closed it the moment I realized I had fallen victim to fraud.
A spokesperson for Revolut told me: ‘We are aware that there has been an increase in the number of attempted scams by criminals and are deeply concerned that large numbers of fraud are being enabled by criminals using fake and spoofed phone calls and text messages. to inform.
“Fraudsters exploit a psychological factor known as ‘compliance pressure’, where individuals feel rushed or emotionally manipulated, leading them to take action without thoroughly verifying the legitimacy of a request.”
The fraud investigation team at Virgin, my own bank, were incredibly helpful in liaising with Revolut on my behalf.
Eight frustrating days after the crime, Revolut returned the money to my bank account, but not without a fight.
As of October 7, new rules from the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) have come into effect around fraud reimbursement rules, meaning more customers will now be reimbursed for Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud, which occurs when a criminal tricks someone into willingly making a bank transfer to them.
I am still ashamed of my own gullibility, not least when I make payments in accordance with the caller’s instructions, with the money he assured me would be returned to my account.
My relief was as great as the lesson I learned about trusting my instincts, not hesitating to hang up on someone, and never giving out personal information.
moneymail@dailymail.co.uk
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