Credit Card/Scam Advice

Joe84_2

Hi, yesterday found out that my mum has been conned out of £15,000 and am absolutely devastated and don’t know what to do. It was a lottery scam where a letter was sent to her which claimed that she had won a million pounds on a lottery in Spain and they need her to pay £15,000 for taxes and handling.

It is an obvious scam but as much as I love my mum, she is incredibly naive and almost childlike when it comes to trusting people. I only found out because I came across the credit card statements.

Once I questioned her about the statements she eventually told me everything, she had taken out the £15,000 in cash across 3 credit cards and paid the scammers through Western Union and Money Gram. This had been going on over a couple of months and she had regular phone conversations with these people. She gave me their number (Spanish area code) which I tried ringing and unsurprisingly there was no answer, what would I have said to them anyway? ‘Give my mum back her money’?

She doesn’t have any savings and I can’t tell my dad about this because he is not a well man and I fear he wont be able to cope. He gives her £80 per week for groceries as she does not work (she is looking though) and she has been using part of that money to pay the credit cards. I can’t understand why they let her borrow so much because she is unemployed.

I’m a full time student and I work part time – I’m worried that I might have to leave Uni and get a job full time to help pay off the debt. The only debt I’ve ever had is my student loan and this is way over my head, I just don’t know what to do.

I’m still sort of in shock and don’t know where I should start. I would be grateful for any advice.

Joe

epsilondraconis

Hi Joe,

Not sure if this is the best approach but I would certainly contact the police and the credit card companies.

I'm sure someone will be along with some better advice shortly.

I hope you get it sorted mate...

flutterbyuk25

Also contact Citizen's Advice for help

x

epsilondraconis

You could also try contacting the UK foreign office. They mentioned the lottery scam on their advice page for Spain...

http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029390590&a=KCountryAdvice&aid=1013618386442

Don't think about leaving Uni - it won't come to that. It'll get resolved one way or another without the need for you to leave Uni and get a full-time job.

relay

Western Union is a favourite means of transfering money among scammers because it is easy to withdraw the money & they can use fake ID's to collect it. You can guarantee the person who has been contacting your mother is not who they claim to be.

Scousebird_2

That is absolutley bloody discusting and these people who scam like this deserve to be locked up for a VERY long time.

I really hope you get it sorted and my thoughts are with you as I know what debt is like but please don't give up your Uni and you have to think of yourself too and no matter what's happened, i'm sure your parents would not want you to do that-but keep us all posted on the progress.

relay

I'm afraid the money is gone for good, these people are so well organised that they wont be traceable. They are very well practiced in this kind of thing, there are thousands of Lotto scams going on everywhere. They are similar to the Nigerian 419 scam which uses letters/stories to extract money from naive and unsuspecting victims & your mother will be one of thousands of people whoi have fallen for the lure of making loads of money - that's essentially how it works because it relies on the naivety or greed of people who honestly think they will inherit millions from a lottery they never even entered in the first place.

If the money was paid by withdrawing cash on the cards to send to the scammer then you wont be covered anyway. I mean this with the best intention but perhaps as a matter of urgency you should have your mothers mail redirected elsewhere so she can't open any more of these letters from scammers & get herself in even more trouble.

Joe84_2

Thanks for the advice guys. I think I’ve already come to terms that we won’t see this money ever again and it will be a case of having to make sacrifices and slowly pay it off. I'm glad I found this site, seems to have loads of great tips that can help. I’ve gone past the stage of being really angry at my mum and these people to where everything feels surreal, like I’m in some sort of bad dream.

relay wrote: »

I mean this with the best intention but perhaps as a matter of urgency you should have your mothers mail redirected elsewhere so she can't open any more of these letters from scammers & get herself in even more trouble.

Its so true, after all this I can't trust her on anything, like if she had anymore money her name I'm not 100% sure she wont just give it away again!

Anyways, life goes on I guess.

Thanks again

Joe

neverdespairgirl

What a horrible position.

I think you need to contact the police and a debt advisory service urgently - have a look on the DFW board, all the details are there. It's important you see a charity debt organisation, not a profit-making one.

BenL

Your mother will now also be on one of the "sucker" lists and more and more mail/phone calls will be done trying to get more and more money from her.

You will need to prepare her for this, she won't be able to win herself out of the mess.