Elderly man loses over £65,000 to crypto scammers

An elderly man was saved from serious debts after losing over £65,000 to crypto scammers. According to reports, the 73-year-old man was first contacted over the phone, with the scammers luring him into making investments in digital assets, presenting an enticing opportunity.

However, things did not go as planned, as the elderly man fell into the hands of scammers, losing £14,500 to them. After a while, the man received a call from someone, claiming they could help him get his money back. According to authorities, the caller pretended to be from a genuine financial services company and told the man that they had already traced the funds he lost, noting that there was still a crypto account in his name.

Elderly man loses £65k to crypto scammers

According to the man, he was at an all-time low around when the representative from the financial services firm called him, highlighting that the caller, calling himself Gabriel, was ringing him nonstop, encouraging him to use their fraud recovery services. “He persistently chased me and chased me,” said the grandfather-of-three. “He even contacted me when I was on holiday in Gran Canaria.”

The elderly man said after the calls became disturbing, he had to block the caller, but then, he was still able to contact him using another phone number. “I should have just hung up, but I didn’t. He sounded so professional, almost to the point of being totally arrogant. I ended up believing him,” the victim said. Eventually, the scammer was able to convince the man, pushing him to agree to use his company’s services to withdraw his lost funds, which he said were sitting in a crypto account untouched.

However, things were not meant to be, because instead of helping the elderly man recover his lost funds, the crypto scammers carried out another elaborate scam that saw him send over £66,500 from his business account to them between December 2024 and January 2025. According to the victim, he was asked to make payments between £7,500 and £18,500 over three weeks before he could withdraw his funds from the crypto account.

Gabriel mentioned that the payments were tied to anti-money laundering regulations and a failed verification process, among other lies he was fed. The elderly man said he received fake emails from a bank and crypto exchange, noting how far the scammers went to make their con appear legitimate. “He said I needed to do this and do that, and I said ‘I can’t keep sending money if you’re not giving me any back’,” the victim said.

In January, he was asked to make a final payment of £7,500 and all of his funds will be released, making the first half in a day, and another half the next day.

National Fraud Helpline solicitors recovered the funds

According to the elderly man, he didn’t get the money on Friday, as promised by the criminals. He even waited to see if he would get it over the weekend, but nothing came. On Monday, the victim said he made a WhatsApp call to Gabriel, and that was when he realized he had been scammed. “So I sent them a message via WhatsApp, very short and sweet, and told him what I thought of him. Then I never heard anything else,” he said.

The victim added that he had invested so much in the hopes that he would get his funds back, but didn’t. “I still get so upset about this. It was an extremely worrying time. Mentally, I was in a bit of a mess, but I couldn’t tell anybody from sheer embarrassment,” he added.

He said he took out four loans to pay the scammer’s fees, noting that he promised an unsustainable monthly repayment plan totaling £1,250. He added that during his ordeal, his bank never queried any of the payments he made to the firm to check if it was a legitimate financial firm or not.

However, luck smiled on him after he contacted the National Fraud Helpline solicitors to help recover his money from Co-Op Bank. NFH was able to recover all his funds, which have now been refunded. He said he was amazed when he got the call telling him about the good news. “I thought I’d lost the lot, I’d rearrange my finances and do what I could,” he said. “Then I saw about National Fraud Helpline solicitors and thought ‘I’ve got nothing to lose’.

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