Parents and grandparents are being warned about a growing text scam which has seen an increase in cases this year already. On BBC Money Box, the team spoke to Jan, who fell victim to this WhatsApp scam as she thought she was helping her son.
Just before Christmas, the 70-year-old received a text from a random number who she thought was her son.
The text read: “Hi mum, I’m texting you on my friend’s phone as my phone is broken.”
As Jan’s son was going through a hard time financially and emotionally, and as they had spoken about him needing a new phone, she was taken in.
The messages carried on and eventually, she was tricked into sending the scammer over £3,000 to someone she thought was her son.
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It wasn’t until she sent the confirmation to her son’s WhatsApp account that she realised she had been scammed.
Jan said: “I was gutted. I was so upset that someone could do this to me.
“I try so hard to save money and watch my pennies, but I felt so gutted that someone could do this to me.”
After contacting the bank, they carried out an investigation to determine whether she would be able to get her money back.
Money Box has learned that more than 1,100 people have reported having had a total of £1.3million stolen from them in the last year by criminals using so-called “hi mum” or “hi dad” scam messages.
The figures from Action Fraud peaked in the run-up to Christmas but the scam is still very active with hundreds of thousands of pounds being stolen in the first three months of this year alone.
The real number is likely to be significantly higher as not all fraud is reported.
Episodes of Money Box are available on BBC Sounds.
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