Sheffield woman left 'devastated' after scammers used her account to steal more than £700 off her kindhearted friend
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Becky Smith, aged 33, was asleep on Tuesday evening when she was woken up by a phone call from her aunt, who said she thought her Facebook account had been hacked.
When Becky logged on, she saw that somebody had accessed her account and sent messages to all of her friends, claiming she was locked out of her bank account and asking for financial help to pay a bill that was due.
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Hide AdThe message said she could pay back anybody who helped her the next day.
Becky immediately changed her passwords and posted online to tell everybody to ignore the messages as they were from a scammer.
However, she got a message back from her friend Kirsty, who told her she had already sent £760 by bank transfer, believing she was helping out a friend in need.
“When she first told me I thought she was winding me up,” Becky said.
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Hide Ad“But then when it turned out she was not I knew we needed to ring the police straight away.
"I am just devastated. It is heartbreaking that this has been done in my name, and somebody has used my account to take advantage of a friend who was going out of her way to be kind.”
Becky and Kirsty rang up Kirsty’s bank, as well as the police and Action Fraud to report the issue.
However, because the money had been transferred to an overseas account and had already been moved on, Kirsty was not able to get the transaction cancelled.
“Kirsty is devastated as well,” Becky said.
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Hide Ad“She has lost everything and now has no money to pay her rent or bills. All because she believed she was doing a kind thing.
"I just want to help her now, and also warn other people about this scam as it could be done to anybody.”
Becky has set up a fundraiser to help cover the money Kirsty had stolen.
You can donate here.