![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Vicki-Jones.jpg\")
Vicki Jones.(Image: Andrew Teebay\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\nThe 44-year-old broke down when she realised what had happened<\/p>\n
10:50, 16 Aug 2025Updated 11:33, 16 Aug 2025<\/p>\n
Vicki Jones.(Image: Andrew Teebay\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n
A woman was left with just \u00a31.61 to her name after answering a deceptive phone call.<\/p>\n
Vicki Jones, 44, said she lost \u00a310,500 of her own money to scammers last week.<\/p>\n
Vicki said she was contacted by a group who claimed they were from a bank that she had two accounts with.<\/p>\n
These individuals claimed she needed to move money<\/a> to a new holding account as her finances had been compromised.<\/p>\n She added that they faked communications from Action Fraud<\/a> – the organisation people are asked to report scams to.<\/p>\n Relaying her experience to the Liverpool Echo<\/a>, Vicki said: “They [the scammers] rang me to say that there had been unusual activity on my account and they had stopped a few payments.<\/p>\n “They said to me that they were going to run through security with me. They didn’t ask anything out of the ordinary, they knew most of the information. I didn’t have to give any of my bank details or anything like that.”<\/p>\n She added that the scammers knew her name, address and were also aware she had two accounts with this bank and a third account with another bank.<\/p>\n “They then said that they wanted to transfer me through to the tier three digital security team because as well as these payments that they’d put a stop on, they also said the supposed imaginary scammers had also managed to successfully set up direct debits in my name,” Vicki explained.<\/p>\n As they were calling from a withheld number, Vicki, from West Derby, Liverpool<\/a>, asked if she could ring them back with the number on the back of one of her bank cards.<\/p>\n The scammers said she was welcome to do so but gave her a number with two different last digits under the pretence that it was an extra secure line.<\/p>\n “Obviously hindsight is an amazing thing but they’d already put me in a panic,” Vicki said. “They knew I had all these different bank accounts and one of the bank accounts held a substantial amount of money that belongs to my daughter for when she goes to college or whatever.<\/p>\n “I had another savings account that had my emergency house fund holiday money because me and my daughter were going on holiday in a couple of weeks.”<\/p>\n After ringing the number, Vicki ended up talking to the same man who told her that he needed to transfer her to a colleague before hanging up.<\/p>\n She was then called again on a withheld number who informed her he was from the tier three digital fraud team.<\/p>\n It was at this point that the scammers convinced Vicki one of her bank accounts had been compromised and she needed to move her money into a new holding account.<\/p>\n Vicki claims she was given a fake crime reference number and an email from Action Fraud.<\/p>\n The scammer then gave her instructions to use her card reader and take a selfie on her bank account to verify her identity.<\/p>\n Vicki said: “He then told me, ‘we can now proceed to close down your account but we’re going to have to open you a new account in order to do it because the scammers who have mirrored your banking app, they’ll have access and can see what’s going on, so we need to try and go undetected.’<\/p>\n “He went on, ‘when we open your new account, if there’s any payments made outside of Merseyside<\/a> then we’ll get in touch, we won’t let the payment go through until we’ve spoken to you.’<\/p>\n “I asked, how\u2019s that going to work? He said, ‘we can discuss all this, don’t worry about it.'”<\/p>\n Vicki continued: “All I was concerned about is my daughter’s savings and making sure that they didn’t end up disappearing.<\/p>\n “So I agreed. They told me to not do it all at once because it would look ironic, it would look too suspicious to the scammers. In total on Thursday night, I’d moved in the region of about \u00a310,500 into the supposed holding account.”<\/p>\n It was 11.30pm at this point and Vicki had been on the phone for over five hours.<\/p>\n The man on the other end of the line said they would be in touch the next day to keep her up-to-date.<\/p>\n It was until Vicki had a chat about it with a friend that she realised she had been conned. She said: “Friday morning came about and I spoke to a friend of mine.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_Vicki-Jones-2.jpg\")
Vicki Jones.(Image: Andrew Teebay\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n