I was left physically sick after scammers left me with NOTHING using a twisted trick
A PART-TIME Covid testing assistant, revealed that she had lost £750 after falling victim to a cryptocurrency scam on Monday’s episode of BBC’s Dirty Rotten Scammers.
“When I logged onto my account, I saw £750 pending, but I couldn’t get hold of anyone to stop it or do anything about it,” she explained.
“Next minute I went in and I saw my balance and it said zero.
“I felt physically sick and I thought to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve just been scammed’. I just wanted to cry,” she admitted.
Kaz was visibly shaken up on the show when she explained what had happened.
She explained that she’d originally chosen to invest £500 into Bitcoin because of the rising popularity of cryptocurrency.
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She hoped that by investing in crypto that she’d get a higher return on her money than she would if it just continued to sit in the bank, which it did.
In less than a month, Kaz’s investment had grown from £500 to £750. However, this is when she was targeted by scammers, and, because cryptocurrency is unregulated, the transaction is virtually untraceable.
Kaz was first targeted when she received an unexpected email that appeared to be from the company she was trading with.
In the email, the company explained that they had just launched their stock IPO and, as a result, they were giving away £750 worth of Bitcoin to their active users.
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Wanting to know more, Kaz clicked on the link they sent, but nothing happened.
A week later, she received a follow-up phone call, which she also believed to be from the trading company.
They informed her she had won the £750 bonus — she just had to confirm her account details to claim it.
She verified her login details over the phone, not knowing this would give the scammers full access to her account. Within minutes, her money was gone.
Kaz sat down with Dirty Rotten Scammers hosts, Michelle and Mavis Ackerley, to discuss how and why the scammers targeted her.
The show’s ethical hackers did a deep dive and discovered that many of Kaz’s personal details — including her date of birth and address — had been part of 14 different data breaches and are publicly visible online.
Shocked, Kaz said: “Wow, I feel quite violated. That they can have all that information on me. That’s something private for me.”
Michelle and Mavis also revealed that information about her mobile network provider, mobile number, social media accounts, email address and passwords had also been found online.
“I’m just mortified at how clever these hackers are to have this information and I didn’t realise they could grab so much personal information about me, which means they could duplicate my identity,” Kaz said.
The hosts explained to Kaz that she could have her data removed by Companies House, but it doesn’t change how “violated” she feels.
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“The 14 breaches have hit a nerve. I’m thinking, ‘wow these guys are out there and they know so much about me’.
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“I didn’t give permission for that and that’s the worst part.”
Dirty Rotten Scammers continues on weekdays on BBC1.
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