'I lost my £150,000 life savings to Facebook investment scam and now I have to sell my home'
Signs that should set the alarm bells ringing include:
Unrealistic returns – watch out for fraudsters promising tempting returns that sound too good to be true, such as much better interest rates than elsewhere. To begin with, Kevin thought things were going well. He followed the instructions provided and working with the manager the cash in his account went up to £87,000.
But then his investments started to lose money and go down in value. Kevin quickly contacted the firm."All the time they promised me that everything would be alright. When Kevin tried to withdraw his money he couldn't, and when he reached out to Plusoption to get his money back, they seemingly disappeared - refusing to respond to his emails or answer phone calls.While he now has a new job, Kevin is still worried about how he'll repay the £121,000 outstanding on his interest-only mortgage when it expires in eight years time.
According to trade body UK Finance, a whopping £50.1million was stolen in investment scams in 2018, affecting 3,385 people.There is no way to get the cash back, say banks Co-op Bank says it submitted a Section 75 refund request at the time but that it was rejected as Plustoption provided screenshots and its terms and conditions which showed that Kevin had used the service.A spokesperson for Co-op Bank said: "We urge customers to only deal with financial firms that are authorised by the FCA, and check the the Financial Services Register to ensure they are registered.
A Bank of Scotland spokesperson said: "While we sympathise with Mr Holmstrom’s situation, the credit card payments were processed as he requested and we are unable to assist him in reclaiming losses incurred through his online trading account.”
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