It starts with a text about a fee for a parcel … and can end with criminals emptying your bank account. Victims and experts explain how to avoid it
When Julia Whittaker, 70, received a text in early March saying she had missed a delivery from Royal Mail, and she needed to pay a £2.99 fee to receive her parcel, she followed the instructions, and clicked through to make a payment. “It’s happened before where people haven’t paid the correct postage, and you are asked for the difference,” she says.
Nothing seemed awry until she got a call from somebody who claimed to work the fraud department at her bank, Santander, saying there was suspicious activity on her account. She hung up, called back a number she says she found on the bank’s website, and spoke to someone who said he was called Dominic, who told her a payment of £750 to Amazon had been paid from an address in a different city. Over the next few days, the man convinced her that her account had been compromised, and persuaded her to visit a branch twice and transfer £35,000 to a different bank, where it would be safe from the criminals.
