'Fraudster left me without a penny'

3 hours ago

Harry ParkhillBBC Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire,

Belinda Whatley says she could not afford to pay her electric bill after a scammer stole £20,000

BBC A woman with long greying hair looks seriously off towards the side of the camera. She's wearing frameless glasses and a blue flowered patterned scarf. — Belinda Whatley says she could not afford to pay her electric bill after a scammer stole £20,000

A woman who lost her life savings to a person claiming to be a fraud advisor says she feels "absolutely sick, distraught and foolish".

Belinda Whatley, 66, from Grantham, Lincolnshire, said the scammer correctly identified her bank card number and transaction history to earn her trust.

The thief then "bamboozled" her by pressuring her into making quick decisions under the pretense that he was trying to stop a fraud attempt.

Whatley added: "They took everything. There wasn't a penny left. I didn't even have the money in the account to pay the bill for the electric that month." She said she was in negotiations with banking officials to get her money back.

Whatley was scammed by someone pretending to be from Action Fraud, which is now called Report Fraud

Getty Images A stock image of a woman looking at a smartphone which has a call coming it, it says "incoming call, suspected spam" on the phone. — Whatley was scammed by someone pretending to be from Action Fraud, which is now called Report Fraud

Whatley said the fraudster tricked her into putting £20,000 into a second bank account by saying it would be "safe there".

However, he then then bombarded her smartphone with requests to approve transactions, which he said would safeguard the money.

In fact, Whatley's money landed in an account controlled by the fraudster.

She said: "They get you a little bit like a rabbit in headlights. You can't think, you can't get to understand what you're doing. I know that sounds crazy, but they get you so confused."

Gillian Fleet, Fraud Protect and Crime Reduction coordinator for Lincolnshire Police, said crimes like these are "a daily occurrence, unfortunately."

According to Report Fraud, a national police programme that collates fraud data, £3.9bn was stolen from 708,715 people in the UK in the year to June 2026.

However, Fleet said stigma still surrounds fraud.

She said: "Belinda coming and talking about what's happened is absolutely amazing."

"If you were a victim of a burglary, you would tell all your friends so that it didn't happen to them. But lots of people don't talk about fraud because, as Belinda said earlier, she felt embarrassed by what happened.

"The more people talk about it, hopefully we can raise awareness and stop more people becoming victims."