‘No one thinks they’d fall for something like this,’ says Hamish Ballingall, 29, from Twickenham, south-west London. ‘But it’s hard to understand how sophisticated these scams are until it happens to you’
“I was on holiday with friends in Spain in August 2021 when I got a text message telling me I was eligible for my Covid vaccination pass. Normally, I’m pretty cautious about that kind of thing – but it was the first evening of my holiday, I’d just had my second jab, and I wasn’t sure how the passes worked. I clicked on the link, which took me to a seemingly official website, paid £5 for the pass, then thought nothing of it. I didn’t know that Covid passports are free.
The next day, I got a call from a well-spoken man who said he was from my bank. He told me there was some suspicious activity on my account, and asked if I’d spent £200 in Liverpool the day before. I put two and two together, and realised the text must have been a scam. But the man on the phone told me not to worry – he’d sort it out.
He said he’d send me a verification code so he could confirm who he was speaking to, and one arrived from my bank’s phone number. I read him the code, and only realised much later that he must have been trying to reset my password. By giving him the code, I’d given him access to my bank accounts.
Logging into my banking app, I saw that £3,500 had been transferred into my girlfriend’s account at a different bank, which seemed odd. The man on the phone explained that the scammers had made a large payment to one of my payees to make sure that the next one, which would go into their own account, wouldn’t be queried.
He calmly told me to transfer the rest of my funds to my girlfriend’s account. He kept reassuring me: “Don’t worry, we’ll fix this for you.” He made me feel like a child who’d made a mistake, and he was going to make everything OK.
I was so worried about losing my money, I felt I had no choice but to trust him as I transferred it in chunks until I’d reached the £25,000 daily limit for transfers. It later dawned on me that by getting me to move the money in small tranches, the scammer avoided triggering alerts at either bank. I was left with just £30 in my account.
While this was happening, my friends were asking if the caller was legitimate. But the man kept reassuring me, telling me: “I can see your account. Your last purchase was £17 at the airport, right?” Then he gave me his ID number and told me I could call the bank to check, but he added: “I understand your concerns, but you could lose your money if you hang up.” He made it clear I had to act as quickly as possible.
He next gave me some new account numbers and sort codes that were in my name, so, following his advice, my girlfriend and I transferred the £25,000 from her account into them. He told me that when I got home, I could pick up my new bank cards from the nearest branch. He seemed happy for me when I said that I could borrow money from friends in the meantime.
Afterwards, he gave me some advice on avoiding fraud in the future, and recommended that I download an antivirus app. I ended the call grateful to him for saving my money, but still wanted to be sure he was genuine, so I called my bank. As soon as I described what had happened, they said: “That doesn’t sound right.” The penny dropped. I realised I had just been scammed.
I was crushed, and had no idea what to do. I was in another country, terrified, trying desperately to deal with losing my money. I reported it to Action Fraud, but kept breaking down in tears on the phone. In the days afterwards, I was so depressed, I just wanted to sleep.
Looking back, the scammer was either incredibly lucky, or incredibly sophisticated. I was waiting for my Covid pass, and he seemed to know everything about the banks’ security systems – in particular how much I could transfer from each account without setting off alerts. No one thinks they’d ever fall for something like this, but it’s hard to understand how manipulative a scam can be until it happens to you.
When I got home, my friends, family and girlfriend were brilliant, and I felt lucky to have people around me who were still looking out for me. Otherwise, I might have lost my faith in humanity.
In the last six months, £6,500 of my money has been recovered, but the case has since been closed. I’m still hoping to get more back – it’s tempting to just forget about it, but I don’t want to admit defeat. I’d urge anyone who’s unsure about a call from their bank to hang up and call them yourself. If there’s someone around who you know and trust, ask their opinion. When you’re deep into something like that, and everything’s happening so quickly, it helps to take a step back.
But the most important thing to know is that your bank will never, ever ask you to transfer money. If that had been drilled into me before the call, perhaps I wouldn’t have fallen for the scam – and I’d still have my £25,000 intact.”
*Source: UK Finance Annual Fraud Report
Find out how to protect yourself from scam messages and scams calls with Lloyds Bank’s Fraud Hub
