Facepalm time.
An elderly couple were duped into handing over ‘nearly €1million’ to fraudsters after becoming the victims of a so-called ‘pig butchering’ scam.
Paul Widdowson, 73, and his wife Ann, 76, who has terminal cancer were lured into putting their hard-earned cash into a bogus scheme after spotting an on-line advert promising huge returns for investors.
The retired gift shop owners fell for a gang of smooth-talking conmen pretending to operate a legitimate investment company, and gave them almost their entire life savings in ten instalments over just ten weeks.
They thought their money was being put into safe corporate bonds run by UK high street banks and building societies, enabling them to live off promised interest rates of up to 13 per cent while keeping their capital safe.
Without wishing to sound cruel, I tend to look on these scams as a tax on stupidity. These two are old enough to realise that there’s no such thing as easy money. Get rich quick schemes are always dodgy. Yet still people fall for them. I mean a little basic research isn’t difficult. Is the scheme covered by the FSA? No? Then its likely to be a scam. It doesn’t take much in the way of digging. Is it too good to be true? Then it isn’t true.
They are now pursuing HSBC for compensation…
Because it is always someone else’s fault, isn’t it? Due diligence starts at home. It isn’t difficult.
Fraudsters copy logos, typestyles and data from websites of genuine banks and investment companies to make their fake websites look like the real thing.
Often the only difference is that the scammers have put in their own emails and phone numbers.
This is easily overcome if you do your own research after all, even spoofed sites can be tracked relatively easily. While this scam was pretty sophisticated compared to most of them, handing over so much money on trust like that is pretty foolish, frankly.
BBC1 has a morning programme called For Love or Money dealing with romance scams. It’s painful to watch as there people are conned out of thousands by the oldest trick in the book. There was a 79 year old man on the last one who was contacted by a 35 year old stunner and he really convinced himself it was a genuine relationship even though they had never met. He was a dentist before retiring so he was an educated man. He wasn’t the slightest bit embarrassed to be exposed as an idiot on national TV.
This is grist to my mill that we should stop thinking of people with letters after their name as ‘clever’. Passing exams is just a test for what I would term ‘intellectualism’, not intelligence. You can be very good at passing exams and still be a idiot, as the dentist in your example proved. Chances are a plumber wouldn’t have fallen for that scam, he’d be more grounded in human nature. I think that people who pass exams think that’s proof they are superior to everyone else, and it makes them very arrogant, and thus ironically easy prey for fraudsters.
I also think its also why we have such moronic politicians – they are all drawn from the ‘educated’ classes as well.
During my driving instructor days, I taught a doctor of hydro physics to drive. It was a long process. She was intellectually brilliant, but couldn’t work her hands and feet together at the same time as well as assess the road and traffic conditions.
My mum has always been well grounded and the kind of sceptical person that you wouldn’t have expected to get caught by a scam. It came as a surprise when she fell for a particularly stupid one and got taken for several thousand pounds. She’s eighty two now and is obviously nowhere near as sharp as she used to be. She totally understands now that she screwed up and so has allowed family members power of attorney over her affairs.
My mother in law is prone. My father, on the other hand, is highly unlikely to fall for anything as he is suspicious of any unsolicited calls he might receive.
The thing was that it was one of those scams that I would have said you would have to be a complete idiot to fall for. So implausible, so many obvious red flags. It was a shock to find that my mother was now at an age when this stuff will work on her. She has been to the doctor and had some tests done and seems to be OK mentally. What was a little amusing is that one of the questions they apparently ask is who the prime minister is. At the time I wasn’t sure myself, who is it this week? Richy somebody, slightly foreign sounding name?
During his final illness, my dad was prone to infections, which can cause the brightest of sparks to go totally doolally at that age. For a while he was convinced he was touring South America. One afternoon while I was visiting him in hospital he took a bit of a turn, and of course once the quacks appeard, the inevitable question came. “Here we go… ” I thought, “Anthony Eden? Churchill?”. This was only about a fortnight after Boris took over, but stone me if he didn’t get it right without even stopping to think.
It still takes me a moment to remember that Liz Truss got the elbow.
I had some cracking arrests a few years ago when I caught a gang who were ringing elderly people and telling them that their cards had been cloned and they get talked into handing them over with their PIN number.
Scammer rings an address with an elderly man registered there called Edward, Unfortunately for the scammer his son answered and he was also called Edward after his Dad. The scammer thought he was talking to a doddery 85 year old man instead of the sharp 50 year old. Younger Edward plays along and gets his wife to call the police on her mobile whilst he strings them along. I arrive with a vanload of chums and we wait around the corner. When the scammers turn up we swoop and get four of our African cousins in custody. Great result as they were linked to numerous other offences.
Brilliant result! But please don’t tell us the sentence as I couldn’t bear the inevitable crushing sense of disappointment…
One of them got three years as he fell on his sword for his mates who got off. It’s a difficult crime to prove unless you catch them in the act as the victims are often elderly and confused as well as being too embarrassed to report it.
Personally, I think that stringing them up from the nearest lamp post is too good for them, but that’s just me.
Chances are, they’re paying someone off.
There is no evidence to support this assertion. The evidence points to it being a fairly straightforward investment scam.