A County Durham man realised he'd been scammed by fraudster Lyne Barlow after he was kicked out of his hotel while on holiday in Turkey.
Paul Stocks paid over £2,000 to dodgy travel agent Lyne Barlow for a two-week holiday to Turkey but was left stunned when he was kicked out of the hotel after three nights because it hadn't been paid for. Paul’s holiday became part of a massive fraud investigation into Barlow - who'd scammed hundreds of victims who’d collectively lost nearly a million pounds.
Barlow, who stole from her own mother and even faked having cancer to evade justice, but was ultimately put behind bars for nine years after appearing at Durham Crown Court. The 39-year-old mother-of-two had been making a name for herself in Stanley, County Durham, by providing cut-price holidays to exotic locations such as Dubai, the USA, the Maldives and Asia.
Paul's story will appear in the latest episode of the series, The Big Swindle, which tells the stories of the most brazen and ruthless con artists and the victims they preyed on, Paul reveals how he was scammed out of over £2000, along with his group of friends, on a dream golfing trip to Turkey.
In a clip from the episode, which is due to air tonight, at 10pm on Quest Red, Paul explains how he learnt they had been scammed by Barlow on day four of their fourteen-day holiday. He said: "The manager actually took us into his office and he was saying ‘you have only been booked into three nights of your fourteen nights.’ We were like, ‘this isn’t possible, we’ve got booking confirmation saying fourteen nights’ so the managers said ‘that’s fake documentation, that’s not what we use for this hotel.’ The manager said ‘but don’t worry, you can just stay here for the duration of the holiday but we want £2,800 per couple.’”
Remembering his horror at the hotel manager’s suggestion, Paul went on to say: "He said he will ring the head office and see what he can do but he came back and said, ‘no, there is nothing we can do. You’ve got two choices; you can pay this money or you are going to have to leave the hotel.’ We were going ‘there is no way we are paying this. We have paid our money; we’ve worked hard for this holiday and we cannot afford to give you any more money’ so we had no choice but to leave the hotel.”
In February, Barlow was given a hefty prison sentence after admitting 10 charges of fraud, one charge of theft and one charge of concealing, converting, and transferring criminal property. Barlow's offending began following the death of her father in 2015. She then decided to steal £520,000 from her own mother by taking over her financial identity. She also dissipated her mother's entire NHS pension and redirected her post and bank statements. As Barlow drained her mother's cash, she also asked for loans from various other friends.
Following her sentencing, Detective Sergeant Alan Meehan, of Durham Constabulary’s Economic Fraud Unit, who led the investigation, said: “Fraud is a horrendous crime and Barlow’s actions were appalling. She made a conscious and deliberate decision to do what she did. There were points at which she could have put a stop to it all, but she carried on and now she is now paying the price for her actions."
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