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Our son had gone to college when a letter from Nationwide arrived at our home. He revealed that he took out a loan of £ 10,000 and was two months behind.
After a tearful conversation, he explained that he was scammed on Snapchat, threatened and committed suicide.
The loan was paid into his Santander checking account, from which he then sent money to the scammer’s account. What can we do?
Sam Richardson, Who?the deputy editor of Money says: I’m really sorry to hear that. It is a reminder of the devastating impact fraud can have on the victim and her family.
It’s also a stark reminder that, due to the increasingly sophisticated and evolving tactics of scammers, each of us can be at risk. Scams can start in unlikely places: Your child was first approached on the Snapchat social networking app, by a scammer claiming that your child could make money from a bitcoin exchange.
At this point you would expect the scammer to ask for money, but what he cared about was the details, especially the personal data he would need to apply for the £ 10,000 loan on behalf of your child.
They used threats of violence to get your son to transfer the money to the scammer’s account and pressured him not to speak to Santander despite the bank’s attempts to contact him about the unusual transfer.
Fortunately, after learning what happened and approaching Santander, they returned the £ 10,000 and Nationwide agreed to write off the interest on your child’s loan and remove it from your credit report. But questions remain as to why Nationwide was willing to lend the money.
The scammer alleged that his son was a Lloyds Bank employee earning £ 1,400 a month without expenses. Neither a check of your child’s credit report nor his personal details would necessarily reveal this to be false, but you hope that a 19 year old looking to borrow £ 10,000 – not to mention the curious lack of spending – could induce further checks. .
Your son isn’t the only victim – Cifas, the financial sector fraud association, reported that identity theft increased by a fifth last year. If you are having trouble getting the money back because your bank refuses your request, you can take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS will act as an independent arbitrator between the complainant and the bank and is used to resolve disputes.
We can take several steps to avoid becoming a victim. Don’t share personal information with anyone unless you can verify their identity – banks will never ask customers for security PINs or passwords over the phone.
Hang up the phone, take five minutes to think about what you were told, and call the organization using a trusted phone number (such as the number on the back of your debit card).
Check what personal information you share on social media and with whom, and be on the lookout for any friend or connection requests from people you don’t know.
When disposing of paper documents, consider destroying those that contain personal information. If you are moving – and since your child is a student, this may be quite common in the next few years – ask the Royal Mail to redirect your message for at least a year.
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