Helen watched her 80-year-old mum send £140,000 to strangers she met online. The first warning sign came when her mother accidentally forwarded messages meant for the scammers to Helen. Then she became secretive about her calls and payments.
The scammers used Facebook and artificial intelligence to alter their appearance in photos and video calls — a trick known as deepfake. They told Helen’s mother the man she loved was in Shanghai, awaiting a life-saving operation. Once he recovered, they said, they would be together. Instead, the demands kept coming, and a new man appeared — claiming he had been kidnapped and needed a ransom to live.
Helen felt helpless. “I didn’t feel like I could cope with not having any tool to deal with it,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Scam Secrets. “That’s not expertise that most families have got.”
The Signs Families Should Watch For
Shari Vahl, the show’s presenter, listed the warning signs:
- Change in behaviour or mood
- Being evasive or secretive
- Frequent post office or bank visits
- Shopping in unusual ways, like buying gift cards
- Unusual financial activities, such as bank transfers and opening new accounts
- Communicating online or by phone in a way that’s out of character
Dale Richardson, a police fraud protect officer, urged families to be “curious but not confrontational.” He suggested asking simple questions: how did you meet? What have they said?
Breaking the Spell Takes Patience
Helen’s efforts to help were met with denial. When she spoke to the scammer on a video call, she saw the deepfake was fuzzy and his voice was out of sync. She tried to convince her mother the man was not who he claimed to be. Her mother responded with disgust and shame, telling Helen to let her keep the relationship.
Lis Carter, a forensic linguist on the Scam Secrets team, stressed the difficulty of helping someone who feels happy in a fake relationship. “Being a family member coming into that, you are ‘destroying’ that happiness,” she said.
Banking Steps That Helped
Helen held a lasting power of attorney, which allowed her to act on behalf of her mother and set up safeguards for her accounts. Jim Winters, head of economic crime at Nationwide, said families should contact their bank if they suspect a scam.
Banks might be limited in what they can share with you for data privacy reasons, but they can take steps to safeguard an account. Once a customer is known to be defrauded, banks can spot the hallmarks quickly and take steps to break the spell.
The bank has returned £45,000 to Helen’s mother’s account so far.
The Digital Cleanup
Helen changed her mother’s phone number three times, but her mother kept giving the new number to the scammers. Eventually, Helen replaced her mother’s smartphone with one that could only do calls and texts.
Winters advised completely resetting a loved one’s digital footprint by changing telephone numbers, email addresses and social media accounts. “That’s what makes you visible, that’s what puts you out there. So taking steps to reset all of that is so important,” he said.
How To Help A Scammed Loved One
The advice is straightforward:
- Ask open questions and stay calm to gather information
- Contact the bank — they can put safeguards in place
- Enlist someone impartial — this can help victims open up
- Reset their digital footprint — scammers can’t continue if they can’t contact them
What Helen’s Case Shows
Helen’s experience shows how hard it is to reach someone caught in a romance scam. The scammers used AI to fake their images, and the emotional bond kept growing even as the evidence piled up.
The return of some funds offers a small sign of progress.
Source material: “'Mum sent them £140,000': How to spot the signs a loved one is being scammed,” the BBC.
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