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Matthew Wright 'crushed' by £19k fraud as he reveals how scammers tricked him into handing over bank details
3 August 2024, 10:15
Matthew Wright left 'crushed' by bank fraud
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Matthew Wright has revealed the details of how he was scammed out of nearly £20,000 this week by fraudsters pretending to work for his bank.
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The LBC presenter told of how he had been defrauded for the second time, in a chain of events that had left him feeling "crushed".
Fraud is the most common crime in the UK, accounting for around 40% of criminal activity in England and Wales. A group of the biggest banks and phone companies in the UK called on the government this week to make cracking down on fraud a priority.
Matthew told listeners on his Weekend Breakfast show on Saturday how he had become "a stat for next year" after falling prey to fraudsters this week.
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He said: "This is the second time I’ve fallen prey to the scammers, and once again I find myself kept awake at night worrying and fretting".
Matthew said the fact he had fallen for the fraud was in part explained by the painful neck condition he has been suffering from recently that has seen him hospitalised, and which has meant he has had to take a lot of medication.
The scam took place shortly after he moved house, so he was getting a lot of deliveries, including a new laptop.
Matthew was out at Tesco when he got a message purporting to be from delivery company Evri saying that he had missed his laptop delivery, and that he should click on a link to rearrange delivery.
"And without even a qualifying thought because I’m rushing around trying to do everything, I l clicked on the link and it asked me for £2.50," he said.
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Matthew said he was annoyed they were asking him to pay, but that he wasn't very surprised, so he gave his credit card details.
"I thought no more of it," he added. "Next day the laptop turned up. It wasn’t delivered by Evri."
Matthew said: "Later in that day I got a message from American Express asking if I’d clicked on a link for an Evri scam, I said 'yeah I had'."
He said that for the next hour he was held on the line by someone claiming to be from the credit card company "going through the details of the scam and discussing charges on my account."
Matthew said: "This incredibly helpful man also said he was notifying my bank to let them know about it. At the end of this very long conversation he hung up and said ‘you’ll probably hear from the bank next'.
"I hung up the phone and within about ten seconds it was my bank listing all these dodgy transactions on my accounts, saying I had to change all my logins, my password - and then of course I then told them what my login and password were so they could be changed.
"And I still hadn’t twigged."
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Matthew was having this phone call from the car park at Tesco, about half a mile from his home.
He said that "the lowest point" was when he ran home to his house to tell the fake bank employee his bank login details because he couldn't get them on his phone, despite the heat and his medical condition.
Matthew added: "And then I hung up and then I got another call from my bank and I said ‘oh it’s funny, I’ve just been talking to your colleagues, and they said ‘oh really?’
"And I hadn’t been talking to their colleagues, I’d been talking to scammers. Scam American Express, scam bank."
Matthew said that he had managed to get most of the fraudulent bank and credit card transactions cancelled - apart from one for £19,000.
He said: "American Express were absolutely amazing - my new card arrived days earlier than expected, all transactions cancelled, all the dodgy transactions cancelled, incredibly reassuring, very polite. First class all the way.
"My bank, on the day of the fraud, when I actually spoke to them, said ‘don’t worry, we’ll look after you.’ Yesterday I looked back and saw that every transaction that they read back to me, all but one had been stopped, one of them, for £19,000 appeared to have been allowed to go through, a standing order."
Matthew added: "I’d been asking my bank for the last 48 hours if and when I’m going to get my money back, and so far they’re refusing to tell me, which I can tell you is doing my head in."
He said that "to be fair… this is an epic situation", adding that his bank "have probably got their own reasons for wanting to join a bunch of other banks… in pressing our government to do more to tackle fraudsters."
Dean Dunham, who presents LBC's Consumer Hour, told Matthew that he would be likely to get his money back because of the sophistication of the fraud.
He added that a review last year found that banks themselves weren't doing enough to protect consumers from fraud.
Dean also pointed out that a law is coming into force later this year which should make it easier for people who have been scammed to claim money back from their bank.
