'I felt so stupid': British business woman scammed out of £436,000
Rita Toor told ITV News Consumer Editor Chris Cho the scam was run by "professionals" and happened "quickly"
Rita Toor was running on no sleep and bringing her sick daughter home from hospital when she received a text message appearing to be from American Express.
It provided a code to authorise a purchase worth £987.11, or to call a phone number if she was not trying to make that payment.
What followed was a series of texts and phone calls over 48 hours, prompting Ms Toor to make multiple bank transfers, ultimately losing £436,000 of her own, her business and her family’s money.
“(The text) was on the same genuine thread where I receive all my secure code messages,” she told ITV News.
“Not thinking anything of it because it’s on the same genuine thread, I called that number, hear the same American Express music.
“It happened so quickly, they are such professionals.”
Ms Toor has revealed how the scam unfolded to ITV News Consumer Editor Chris Choi as officials announced on Wednesday that the amount of compensation banks will pay to fraud victims would be reduced.
Instead of covering £415,000, only £85,000 will soon be covered.
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When Ms Toor made the phone call to what she thought was American Express to contest the payment, she was told someone was trying to take money from her bank account and that she was being transferred to the bank’s fraud team.
Ms Toor said she later received a follow-up phone call from someone claiming to be from the Financial Conduct Authority, who told her it was a "very high level case" and urged her to cooperate with their investigation into the matter.
Over the next few days, this "well-spoken" man – masquerading as the FCA – directed her on how to transfer large sums of money between accounts and how to work with Lloyds Bank to make these transactions "to protect her money".
The caller – who always rang from a withheld number – banned Ms Toor from speaking to anyone about the so-called "investigation" and told her to keep her phone on airplane mode.
“I felt so stupid, I felt so daft,” she said.
“I’ve asked myself this time and time again – how did I allow this to happen to me?
"It’s because they knew the names of one of my business accounts that nobody else knows.
“I was supposed to be this intelligent person who everyone looks up to, people come to me for advice, yet I was taken to be a mug.”
Ms Toor said during one of her visits to a Lloyds Bank branch, a genuine bank employee raised concern that another account had accessed her bank account, but allowed one of the bank transfers anyway.
“It wasn’t just my money; it was client money, it was my parent’s money, my brother and sister’s business accounts and to think I’ve just given it all away,” she said.
“I couldn’t look at them in the eyes.”
She said she was still trying to "get justice" from her bank but felt fortunate to still have her family's support.
Her advice to other people is to not keep too much money in one single bank account and if you ever received a phone call or message from a bank, to hang up and ring your bank back.
You can read more here about how to avoid authorised push payment fraud
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