Woman, 84, loses £90,000 life savings after phone scam by fake police officers

An 84-year-old woman lost all £90,000 of her life-savings because fraudsters, who pretended to be Scotland Yard fraud squad officers, convinced her that they wanted to protect her accounts.

During the first episode of the new series Rip Off Britain aired on BBC One, Joyce Smith, from the North-East, said the fraudsters constantly phoned her, giving her strict instructions on how to avoid the loss of her savings, but instead convinced her to make three separate transactions to them.

"I thought I was talking to the police, and I've always considered the police trustworthy," Ms Smith said.

Despite normally hanging up on cold callers, Ms Smith took the fraudsters advice who said she should be "wary of any questions from the staff at her local branch" because they were supposedly in on the con.

The fraudster who called himself Sergeant Jackson, told Ms Smith that he had set up safe accounts in her name, but she would need to visit her local branches to transfer the money across to them.

Ms Smith followed their instructions, leading her to transfer almost £32,000 from her accounts at two separate banks.

Although her banks noticed the unusual transactions, they could not notify her and stop them going through because she went on a long-planned holiday.

Upon her return, the fraudsters contacted Ms Smith, again, convincing her to transfer an additional £58,000.

Unsure about the validity of their story, she contacted the real Scotland Yard; but she was too late, her life savings were gone.

"I've learnt to trust nobody about anything. That's a terrible thing because I always trusted everybody," she said on the programme in an attempt to warn others.

The police were able to recover £13,000 of her lost savings, but because she transferred the money on her own accord, the banks were not obliged to help her recover the rest.

Gloria Hunniford, the presenter of Rip Off Britain alongside Angela Rippon and Julia Somerville, said she herself was a recent victim of bank fraud: "This is a particularly upsetting story, and we're very grateful to Joyce for sharing it with us so that nobody else has to go through the same thing."

Police have stressed they will never contact people asking them to transfer money from one account to another, and that anyone who receives such a call should report it to the police and their bank straight away.

The new series of Rip Off Britain is on BBC One at 9.15am on Monday.