50 Shocking Stories From People Who Got Tricked Out Of Their Money

My grandfather (in his late 70s/ 80s at the time) started “going out” with a much younger woman (30s) he met through his church. He gave her very large amounts of money, to pay for her studies, trips back to Poland to visit her family. He even ended up paying the rent on an apartment in so she could live there. They were meant to be engaged, he bought her a ring and everything and she was supposedly getting the apartment ready (had to be just right and she kept asking for money to furnish/ decorate it) so he could live there with her. It dragged out, his health took a turn for the worse and eventually I think he started to get worried about it and suspicious. It all came out. My uncle was furious. He and his wife flew over and went to the apartment to confront the woman and everything. It turned out that she had been living in the apartment with her boyfriend. There was no way of getting any of the money back of course. All in all, it was a really shocking amount. They consulted a solicitor but as he said, the money had been given willingly etc. The woman and her bf disappeared then anyway, never to be seen or heard from since. My grandfather died not too long after.

Some friends of mine fell for one that was common about ten years ago when someone from 'your bank' would ring up with a spiel about fraudulent activity, ask for lots of info including your pin, and would then send round a motorbike courier to collect your bank card so it could not be used fraudulently anymore... Lots of urgency and pressure so they didn't have time to think until after the motorbike roared away; by the time they called their actual bank about half an hour later, hundreds of pounds had been taken from their account.

I know someone who lost £5k booking a fake holiday villa online. Don't know if they got anything back.
This was someone with a fairly senior IT role, which goes to show its not just the technophobe grannies and grandpas that can fall victim.

I got a 'mum I lost my phone' text, and was so lucky that ds and I happen to use an unusual sign-off to our texts, so i knew it wasn't him. Wasn't deliberate to set it up but it saved me!

My husband did recently, thankfully they didn't get any money, but he'd been talking to actual paypal on Facebook during a time of crazy amount of stress recently, accidentally clicked someone else and carrier on the conversation and gave his bank details, as soon as he did he said outloud why did I do that and I went through the conversation, we got onto the bank straight away and cancelled that card etc, he had been saving up money to pay for the things causing us stress so it could have been a lot lot worse.

My dad was nearly scammed from someone pretending to be from talk talk. They were very insistent he transferred them some money via western union that day. He was going along with it and asked his neighbour to give him a lift to the post office , and the neighbour realised it was a scam.
Another friend was scammed out of 10k which was all their savings, I can't remember exactly how, it was some scheme were they were persuaded to invest but I can't recall how they were contacted

Me. I fell for a romance scam off Guardian Soulmates, there's a thread about it on here somewhere. Not huge amounts thank goodness but it was insanely stupid.

And an older relative. Followed up the classic Nigerian Prince email and was in the clutches of an increasing network of scum from all over the world until his death, for about ten years I think. He had terrible credit scores (went bankrupt in his 50s, state pension only, no assets) and we couldn't see why they kept calling him, and then we found he was persuading acquaintances and even his partner to hand over vast sums which he sent to the scammers. He was bloody lucky he didn't end up in jail.

Yes, a relative lost over 6 figures in a crypto scam. They had made a decent living trading until that point but I few personal stressors means they took their eye off the ball and it went…it was a quite a big scam that span numerous countries. They were contacted by the FBI but I this was a couple of years ago and so assume they never found the culprits.

Yep, my dad, just under £14k. Wouldn't wish it on anyone to deal with

My DP was scammed out of £50k, it's a long boring story but l said at the time please stop, it was a friend of friend so she knew the 1st person,..turns our loads of people got scammed..l kept saying you throwing good money after bad. Think can you lend me £5k will pay it back in a week with interest, just waiting for paperwork.
These people were in another country obviously no one got any money back.