'I lost £17,000 from a £1.41 text message'

A woman's world was "turned upside down" after she was scammed out of more than £17,000 after a simple text message.

The 61-year-old, who has been advised to remain anonymous because she lives alone and is therefore at risk of repeating scammers, was lured into sharing her bank details with a telephone call who pretended to be from her bank's fraud department. She said the man who scammed her had an "educated southern English accent" and said he sounded just as legitimate as the official bank fraud officials.

On Friday, November 3 of this year, the woman received a text message asking for a £1.41 payment for an undelivered Royal Mail parcel. She said she paid using her HSBC bank card, North Wales Live reports.

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Not soon after, she was called by 'Dave from Swindon' who claimed to be a HSBC fraud manager. He told her two recent transactions of £487 and £1,157 had been made from her account.

The woman said: "He told me to check the telephone number on the back of my card and to compare it with the number he was calling from, so that I knew he was genuine. In fact, the last digit was a three instead of a four. He explained the bank’s fraud department has grown and he was calling from a sub-department, hence the minor discrepancy.”

One the fraudster had access to the HSBC account, he discovered regular payments to a Santander savings account. He told the woman that it was highly likey that account had also been compromised, so she shared her details yet again.

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