Hollyoaks star Adam Rickitt has opened up about the moment £50,000 was drained from his bank account by scammers, during an interview on ITV's Good Morning Britain.
He appeared alongside his wife Katy Rickitt, who is a reporter for the breakfast TV programme, to talk about how the thugs managed to get his money and the precautionary steps he took, reports Express.
Adam told Susana Reid and Ed Balls on Wednesday that the scammers "knew too much" about his personal details - which made him think it was a genuine phone call from his bank.
Touching on the heartfelt video Adam posted to social media, Susanna admitted: "I listened to you speak about the details of it.
"I thought, 'I would have fallen victim to that'. Frankly, it was very persuasive, they induced a sense of panic in you that you had to act quickly.
"And it occurred to me that you did everything that you could to try and verify who these people were, how much did you lose during the scam?"
Adam revealed: "We lost £50,000, or just shy of that. The scary thing is that wasn't what they were aiming for.
"They weren't aiming for the £49,500, they were aiming to empty our entire business account and it was purely by chance after this two to three-hour process that I was able to spot the money that I was told would never be leaving our account, had actually left and it wasn't Barclays I was speaking too."
Susanna added: "And a lot of people would think, 'Why would you make a payment?' That is the obvious question, isn't it?
"So what is it that made you 100 percent believe you were making a dummy payment to Barlacys because you were talking to their fraud department?"
Laughing at the mistake, Adam said: "It was a whole, hand on heart, they are better at this than I would ever be.
"They are better and I think the system will ever be. Essentially they were ringing me from the Barlacys fraud number itself which I did check.
"I naively didn't know that you could ghost financial institutions."
Curious about what he meant and knowing some viewers wouldn't understand, Susanna asked: "Explain what that means."
He revealed: "It's basically where you have a number show up on your mobile phone and originally I got a text message from Barclays text department.
"The text said I will be getting a call from a member of the fraud department, the number they called me on, the first thing I did was go onto the Barclays website and it was the same number.
"Essentially it transpires, hackers are now able to ghost people's numbers, not only so you're called from that number, but if you hang up and redial they will still pick it up.
"You need to ring them from an entirely different phone. The most convincing thing for me despite looking them up on LinkedIn was the fact that they knew too much about my account.
"They knew how much was in the bank to the nearest penny and they knew every single cash withdrawal we had made from ATM machines."
When discussing what viewers could do if they feel they are being scammed, Adam explained: "The only way you can verify this is, do not use the vehicle they use to approach you.
"You have to make the direct approach yourself, otherwise, I know it sounds ridiculous but if you engage with them for literally 30 seconds, they install such panic in you, you will lose.
"Just hang up the phone and call the fraud department yourself, the second you engage with them you will lose, they will break you."
Katy added: "If this happens to you, it is actually a real gamble whether you get your money back, we want this to change for other people."
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
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