Woman issues warning about text scam that stole ‘every penny’ she had

After a young woman was conned by a text scam that saw her lose ‘every penny’ she had, she took to social media to warn others.

Student and actor Emmeline Hartley went viral after sharing her experience, with others saying something similar had happened to them.

Emmeline received a text from some scammers pretending to be Royal Mail, which kicked off a chain of events that led the con artist’s to call her and pretend to be from Barclays, her bank.

She took to Twitter to warn others: “I mentioned yesterday that I’d been scammed out of every penny I had. Thought I’d post what happened in case it helps anyone avoid being in the same position.

“Please save the lectures, I don’t think it’s possible for me to feel any stupider”.

It all began when she received a text claiming to be Royal Mail saying they needed an additional £2.99 payment in order for her parcel to be delivered, and as her birthday was coming up she believed it was genuine.

To be sure it was legitimate, she even checked Royal Mail’s website, and decided it was safe to enter her bank details.

This is when things took a turn, and someone claiming to be from her back, Barclays, contacted Emmeline to say somebody had tried to set up direct debits from her account at Vodafone and Currys/PC World, as well as an attempt to spend £300 at Argos.

Emmeline added: “The next bit is going to sound stupid, but I was so embarrassed by my stupidity of falling for the Royal Mail scam, shocked and scared that somebody had been trying to use my card.”

She went on to explain that, because the man on the phone knew so many details about her, she believed it was actually her bank, and transferred all the money she had into a new ‘safe account’.

The scammer told Emmeline that because she’d used her bank details in the Royal Mail scam that her account was compromised, and that she needed to transfer her money out to protect it, while she waited for a new card.

To highlight how sophisticated the scam actually is, Emmeline checked the number she was being called from and it showed up as the same number as the Barclays fraud team.

It was only after the scammers told her to clear her overdraft that she began to realise something was off, as she didn’t actually have one on her account.

She said: “Despite knowing deep down that something wasn’t right, I tried to transfer the sum of money he told me to transfer. It didn’t work, confirming what I guess I already knew. I broke down in tears and he hung up.”

Cristiano Betta / Flickr

After calling the real Barclays, they explained that the scam she’d been tricked by is quite common at the moment.

She added: “After several hours [on the phone to my actual bank], they’d cancelled my cards, issued new ones and launched an investigation into my fraud claim. They said that this a very common scam known as the ‘safe account scam’.”

A spokesperson for Barclays told Cosmopolitan UK: “Following an investigation of this case, it is evident that our customer has been the unfortunate victim of a very sophisticated scam. We have provided the customer with a full refund of the amount that was lost.

“Fraudsters try to appear as legitimate as possible, so it’s important to be vigilant and stay alert to anything suspicious.

“No genuine bank would message you to transfer money to a ‘safe account’ – we advise any customers to ignore anyone who asks to do this, whether it’s by phone, email or any other method.”