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An 84-year-old has been left devastated after being “scammed” out of £100,000 in life savings that he’d planned to pass onto his children.
Paul Henderson from Glen Parva says the sum disappeared after three phone calls that he initially thought was The Co-operative Bank’s fraud team.
The Leicestershire pensioner didn’t think the December 13 call unusual because he’d recently requested a new card after his old one was used for a £30 fraudulent transaction.
The former university lecturer told Leicestershire Live: “I noticed it was an out-of-area number and I usually don’t answer those, so I just let it ring, but after the third time, I’d had enough, so I answered because I just wanted to get rid of them.
“They claimed that they were the Co-operative Bank fraud department. The caller claimed that two transactions were made from my account, one for £50 and one for £30 and they asked if I’d authorised them – which I had not.”
Mr Henderson added: “At one point he asked what school I had gone to and this is when I got a little suspicious because he asked for my first school, and my memorable security word was my last school.
“I said an answer which the caller claimed was wrong and then he asked another security question and in hindsight, Co-op would never do that.
“It went on for about seven minutes and right at the end, he said he was sending a security code to my phone, and that’s when I fell for it.
“I read back the code that had been sent by text, and I later realised that while the person was talking to me they were changing my bank account details.”
Mr Henderson said that he did not realise initially that he had been scammed but at 5.50 pm on the same evening, he received a text from Co-op stating that some of his security details had been changed. He also tried to access his account but it had been blocked by the bank.
At the time he was unaware of how much money had been taken. On Monday, December 18 he phoned the Co-op bank to inform them that he had his laptop cleaned and was given new login details by the bank, but to his horror, when he checked his account, his money – around £100,000 of his life savings – had been taken.
He said: “When I contacted Co-op they told me that perhaps my computer wasn’t cleaned properly, but I’d taken it to a trusted person that I’d dealt with for more than 30 years. I have no idea how they got access because the Co-Op said that they have measures in place to prevent these things but that hasn’t happened in this case.
“Since then the whole thing has been static and my account has been blocked again.”
According to Mr Henderson, Co-op Bank has opened an investigation into the incident and he has since provided the company with a crime reference number. Paul believes that the scammers were able to obtain the money through his phone, which he said he did not get cleaned.
He said: “I’ve been around for a long time, I’m quite computer savvy, and I know all about scammers, but if I thought it was a trick I wouldn’t have fallen for it. I’d just advise anyone with an accessible bank account with a large amount of money to put it somewhere else like an account that you have to give notice before taking out money.
“I feel demoralised and I don’t want anyone to go through what I’ve been through. I don’t live an extravagant lifestyle but I was leaving this money behind for my children.”
After LeicestershireLive’s intervention on Thursday, January 4, Peter said that Co-op Bank was able to retrieve some of the money that had been stolen, and the bank would reimburse him the rest.
He said: “Although I am very unhappy about being scammed in the first place, it looks as though everything will sort itself out in the end.”
A spokesperson from Co-op Bank said: “We are seeing fraudsters becoming more sophisticated in their approach to scams, even going so far as to impersonate members of staff, and are asking our customers to remain vigilant and never trust anyone that makes an unsolicited call.
“Protecting our customer from fraud is of the utmost importance and we are pleased that in this case, we were able to act quickly to prevent further transactions on Mr Henderson’s account and fully refund the amount lost.”
