‘I bought my scammer a beer’ says man who fell for ‘double swipe’ phone con that saw £10k drained from his account

A MAN who fell for a phone con that saw £10,000 drained from his account says he bought the scammer a beer.

Roberto Mobile says he fell victim to the cunning scam during a late night out at a London pub.

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Mobile, 53, says his phone was stolen and bank account drained after he thought his phone had been found by a stranger.

The well-dressed man approached him at the bar on February 18 at 1.55am and said Mobile had dropped his phone.

The scammer handed the ‘found’ phone back to Mobile and the businessman punched in his lockcode to prove it was his in front of a security guard.

Mobile was suckered in by the fake good deed, thanked him and bought the man a beer at the pub he was boozing at – The Swan in Stockwell.

But, seconds later the businessman realised the phone was missing again.

Mobile told MyLondon: “It then dawned on me that I had been picked twice in the night and the handing into the bar was part of an elaborate charade to get my phone code.”

He said that he managed to get through to Virgin Money at 4am in the morning to get his card cancelled.

But he says the bank took 24 hours to cancel the card in which time the scammers stole £10,000.

The money was stolen in one £4,800 transfer and 117 transactions to stores like JD Sports, Argos, and Tesco.

The theft left him feeling physically sick and he now believes it was the work of an organised group.

He says he was only left with £500 to his name and it took three weeks for Virgin Money to return the stolen cash leaving him furious.

Without the phone he was also unable to pay his staff because he couldn’t access his Apple account.

He said: “I suffer from depression, so episodes like this really bring me down. It was not even about me, but my staff and paying wages.”

“Finding out all of the money had gone was a punch in the gut. I was not talking to people for days. I had been done. I felt physically sick someone had their hand in my pocket. For about a week I was in deep trauma about it all.”

A Virgin Money spokesperson said at the time: “We’re committed to protecting our customers from fraud and we’re sorry to hear about Mr Mobile’s experience.

“Having looked again at how we dealt with his case, we recognise that the level of support we provided was not in keeping with the standards we would normally expect. Our customer service team will be contacting Mr Mobile to apologise and discuss an appropriate resolution.”

The Met was also investigating the theft and said in a statement in March: “We are investigating a report of theft after a man reported that money was stolen from his bank account.

“The offence allegedly occurred at a bar in Clapham Road, SW9, on Sunday, 18 February. Enquiries are ongoing. There have been no arrests.”

The Swan has been approached for comment.

This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk