A former Coronation Street star issued a warning after he was scammed out of £50,000.
Adam Rickitt is renowned for his role as Nick Tilsley on the long running soap. The 44-year-old appeared on Good Morning Britain alongside his news correspondent wife, Katy.
They told broadcasters Ed Balls and Susanna Reid how they fell victim to fraudsters claiming to be from Barclays bank. Adam received a text purporting to be from the bank warning that there had been “suspicious activity” on his account and then received a call from an 0845 number, claiming to be the bank’s fraud department.
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Adam said: " They were ringing me from the Barclays fraudline, which I did check. I naively didn't know that you could ghost financial institutions."
He added: "Not only are you called from that number, but if you hang up on them and redial it from the same phone, they will still pick it up."
The fraud is known as Authorised Push Payments and involves scammers deceiving a payer into authorising a payment to fraudsters. . Adam claimed the fraudsters appeared to actually be from Barclays as they urged him to not share details of his account and knew specific details of recent bank activity.
He said: "They literally listed the exact places we have been and made cash withdrawals." Barclays has since refunded the soap star and has launched an investigation into how his details were accessed.
Katy said she wanted to share their story to prevent people from falling victim to the same scam. She said: "So if your bank rings you, hang up the phone and call the number on the back of your card so you 100 percent know you are getting through to your bank. We’ve learnt that the hard way.”
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