My Thursday started like most days of the week with a workout, an early school run, and a walk before opening my laptop.
When my mobile phone rang mid-morning, everything changed, especially as £1,200 later disappeared from my bank account. He had been a victim of fraud.
If, like me, you always thought that scammers would never scam you, I’m proof that even if you think you’ve read a lot about how scammers operate, you can easily be fooled.
Victim: Sadie Nicholas says she felt foolish after phone scammer tricked her out of £1,200
Afterwards, you’ll probably feel (like me) dumb, embarrassed, angry at yourself, and anxious about the loss of money, passwords, or other personal data that might have been compromised.
Despite significant efforts to combat fraud across the financial industry, according to UK Finance, the trade association for the UK banking and financial services sector, £1.17 billion was stolen through fraud in 2023.
So how did I end up with a £1,200 outlay?
Let’s go back to that 10:30 a.m. call. The man who called me claimed to be from Amazon’s fraud investigation team.
My Amazon account had been hacked from an IP (Internet Protocol) address in California, he said, before asking me if I had been putting iPhones in my Amazon shopping basket without paying. I hadn’t done it.
At this point I must tell you that our Internet was not working, which immediately put me at a disadvantage.
I had to put it on my smartphone’s speaker while using the same device to log into my Amazon account and sure enough, there were two iPhones costing £599 and £499 waiting for payment.
A third iPhone appeared before my eyes in my basket. My account was being 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 me a one-time password (OTP) to my mobile phone from Amazon as a security measure.
Within seconds, a four-digit code appeared in a text message from the same Amazon number from which I received countless previous text messages reporting late or attempted deliveries.
Interruptions from builders working on the house that morning added to the chaos.
And that is precisely when these criminals manage to fool intelligent people like me; If they’re lucky and catch you off guard or in a busy or vulnerable moment, they’ll put you in a tailspin and, bingo, they’ll hook you.
On any other day, he would have given the man short shrift and hung up the phone. Instead, I panicked and made a series of mistakes, namely following his instructions to first download an app called Zoho Customer Assist from the App Store, which he told me would protect my compromised Amazon account.
He then told me about setting up what he said was a “secure account” with Revolut (the global fintech company which was granted a UK banking license in July) to “secure” the various cards. conventional bank accounts attached to my Amazon account, which I usually pay for the goods. I was instructed to deposit money into the Revolut account to pay for any future products from there.
Notifications: Sadie’s caller claimed to be from Amazon’s fraud investigation team
If I had stopped to think about this, I would have realized it didn’t make any sense and would have hung up.
Instead, he convinced me to send £599 and £499 for the iPhones and another random payment to the new Revolut account to “protect” that money from scammers who he claimed had hacked my Amazon account. He assured me that the money would be returned directly to my main bank account.
I received ‘live’ messages purporting to be from ‘Amazon Secure Server’ telling me that ’90 percent of the work has been completed and we will now refund your money.’
Seconds later, I came to my senses and hung up on the scammer after yelling some expletives at him.
Frantically, I checked the Revolut account on my phone and saw that the money had disappeared. It was too late. The scammer had set up the Revolut account to have access to it all the time.
Terrified of what else I 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 fraud and cybercrime reporting centre.
It provided me with a crime number and the peace of mind that I had fallen for a common and sophisticated scam that countless intelligent and normally vigilant people, including police officers, have fallen victim to.
One victim of the scam is comedian Simon Evans, who recently shared his own identical experience on social media to warn his followers about the Amazon phishing scam.
His alarm bells rang louder than mine, and the moment the criminals sent him a unique access code belonging to Amazon, he changed his login password and hung up.
Reporting the crime to Amazon by phone was impossible. Although I did it by email, I never got a response. Communication with Revolut was only possible via email or an online chat in their app.
Presumably, this is one of the reasons why scammers engage companies like Amazon and Revolut, knowing that their victims cannot make a quick call to either company to verify whether the person contacting them is genuine or not.
Target: Earlier this month, Action Fraud revealed that Revolut had appeared in 9,793 fraud reports in the last 12 months, around 2,000 more than Barclays and Lloyds.
When I asked Revolut why, a spokesperson told me: “Talking to us via chat means our customers can be 100 per cent sure they are connected to a member of our team, rather than a caller.” and that he may be a scammer.”
Earlier this month, Action Fraud revealed that Revolut had been mentioned in 9,793 fraud reports in the last 12 months, around 2,000 more than Barclays and Lloyds.
The company now faces questions about the effectiveness of its security controls in detecting what could be suspicious activity on an account.
Revolut has more than nine million customers in the UK 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 occurred. has produced.
“Banks and financial services providers should be the last line of defense against fraud, not the only line of defense.”
Further investigation discovered that my money had been sent 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 properly convey what had happened and understand what my options were to try and get the money back, but they said: “We can’t talk 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 been a victim of fraud.
A Revolut spokesperson told me: ‘We are aware that there has been an increase in attempted phishing scams by criminals and we are deeply concerned that criminals are enabling a large number of frauds using phone calls and SMS messages. fake and counterfeit.
“Scammers take advantage of a psychological factor known as ‘compliance pressure’, where individuals feel rushed or emotionally manipulated, leading them to act without thoroughly verifying the legitimacy of a request.”
The fraud investigation team at Virgin, my own bank, were incredibly helpful in contacting Revolut on my behalf.
Eight frustrating days after the crime, Revolut returned the funds to my bank account, but not without a battle.
From 7 October, new rules set by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) around fraud refund rules came into effect, meaning more customers will now be refunded for Authorized Push Payment fraud. (APP), which occurs when a criminal tricks someone into voluntarily making a bank transfer to them.
I remain ashamed of my own gullibility, especially in making payments according to the caller’s instructions, money that he assured would be returned to my account.
My relief was as colossal as the lesson I learned about trusting my instincts, not hesitating to hang up on someone, and never revealing personal information.
moneymail@dailymail.co.uk
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