Woman Defrauded of £20,000 in WhatsApp Screen Sharing Scam

A woman reported feeling unwell after being deceived into transferring £20,000 to fraudsters, having been convinced to activate screen sharing during a WhatsApp conversation. Felicity Campbell recounted the instant she became aware of her involvement in a sophisticated fraudulent scheme orchestrated by an individual impersonating a representative from her bank. The fraudulent activity began when Mrs Campbell, a resident of Bleasby, Nottinghamshire, replied to a counterfeit TV licensing email and provided her credit card information. Upon recognizing the email as a phishing attempt, she contacted her bank to cancel the card; however, the deception continued beyond this point. Five days subsequently, she received a telephone call from a man asserting to be from her bank, as she informed BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours program. “The man on the other end of the line said, ‘this is the Nationwide calling. Did you respond to a phishing email from TV Licensing?’,” she said. “I said I had. And he said, ‘we’re a little bit concerned that your online account has been compromised. Have you made a payment of £1,500 to Western Union?’ And I said ‘no, I definitely have not’.” Growing suspicious, Mrs Campbell questioned the man’s identity, inquiring if he was genuinely affiliated with Nationwide. He responded by disclosing accurate details regarding her address and recent financial transactions. She recounted: “He said, ‘are you sure you have not made a payment of £1,500 to Western Union?'” “And I said, ‘I have not’. And he said, ‘OK, well we think your account has been compromised. I now need to help you make the account secure’.” The individual terminated the phone call and re-established contact through WhatsApp, inquiring if Mrs Campbell wished to proceed. She stated, “Reluctantly, feeling a little sick, I have to say, because I wasn’t absolutely sure, but I said OK,”. “He then instructed me to press a few buttons on my phone.” These directives, ostensibly intended for him to “guide” her in securing her accounts, resulted in Mrs Campbell sharing her screen with the man. This capability, introduced by WhatsApp for its calls last year, enabled him to view the contents of her phone, including the presence of additional accounts with Lloyds and Wise, a money services provider specializing in international cash transfers. Over the subsequent 90 minutes, the man directed Mrs Campbell to transfer various amounts of money among these accounts, and also into a distinct Western Union account, observing the transactions via screen share, all while maintaining the pretense of assisting her. She recalled, “All the while he’s saying to me, ‘we are managing to recover the money, but we’ve got to act fast because it’s going out fast’,” “So I’m seeing them coming in thinking, ‘well the money’s being recovered’, but you know, stupid me, didn’t realise that he was shuffling it all into my Wise account.” During the process, he convinced her to obtain a £25,000 loan, ostensibly to “block” a separate loan he alleged had already been acquired. Mrs Campbell stated: “If that one instruction had come in isolation, I would have said… ‘what planet do you think I live on?'” “But because I’d been groomed and everything was making me feel more and more fearful and more and more insecure, you get swept along by the scammers insistence of acting now.” Upon the loan’s arrival in her account and the subsequent request for its transfer, Mrs Campbell determined she could not continue. “On the second transfer I said, ‘OK, I am now really uncomfortable. I don’t want to continue this’. And he said, quote unquote, ‘go F yourself, madam’.” “And I knew I’d been had. I felt so sick, I can’t tell you.” A cumulative sum of £20,000 belonging to Mrs Campbell was transferred from her accounts to Western Union. Western Union informed You and Yours that these transactions were directed to specified accounts located in India. Mrs Campbell has subsequently succeeded in recovering a portion of the funds from her banking institutions. Nationwide has reimbursed her £6,000, which covered the funds transferred from that specific account, and stated it was probing the method by which the perpetrator accessed her bank account to obtain her transaction details. Lloyds is conducting an investigation and has issued a refund of £2,000 pertaining to debit card transactions Mrs Campbell executed following the criminal’s directives. The bank stated that in instances where funds were moved between an individual’s accounts, the onus for refunds rests with the bank from which the money was transferred to the fraudster. Wise reported having dispatched multiple warning notifications to Mrs Campbell, inquiring if the payments were being initiated by her, and confirmed that she had pressed the button on her phone to affirm these transactions. Wise further stated it had reimbursed her for approximately half of the transactions it had processed after she reported the fraud, amounting to roughly £6,000. Audiences can engage with BBC Nottingham on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Story proposals may be directed to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or submitted via WhatsApp at 0808 100 2210. This content is copyrighted by BBC in 2024, with all rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the material on external websites. Details concerning its external linking policy are available for review.