Sally says:
Your son should have been full of excitement about starting university. Instead, crooks took that all away when they stole his money and left him distraught and starting term with an empty bank account.
Often, it is not until heading off to university or into the world of work that young people have serious dealings with financial institutions. It all seems a bit mysterious. So it is no wonder that your son was convinced by what the “bank” was telling him.
Criminals exploit whatever credible trick they can, and schemes relating to Covid passes seem to be their latest gambit.
You believed you were doing the sensible thing in passing on the text to your son. He, like you, believed this was an alert offering an official link to the NHS app to get a pass confirming his vaccination status.
Sadly, it was a nasty ruse for an authorised push payment scam. The crooks asked for the £5 for the pass (the official pass is free), but more disturbingly, to garner vital financial and personal details from him that enabled them to take the next steps in their scam and empty his account of his savings.
When the crooks rang him, he truly believed it was HSBC. The call came from 0800 0852401 – an authentic HSBC number (I checked it).
When the person on the line asked him to set up an account with Revolut as a safe place for his money, he did as was instructed and credited it with £5,830. He then transferred the money to what turned out to be the scammer’s…
