Fraudsters are now prepared to play the long game in their latest despicable bid to prise cash from vulnerable people.
In one case, a scammer conducted a WhatsApp conversation with an elderly woman that lasted four days while pretending to be her daughter, before conning her into transferring £3,500 believing it was to pay for a desperately needed laptop.
And now finance experts have issued new warnings after over ‘Hi mum’ scams after she narrowly avoided having her savings raided – only being saved by an automated bank check.
The victim, who asked not to named, revealed she felt like an ‘utter fool, and completely violated’ after she was convinced to loan her ‘daughter’ £3,385.58 for a new Apple MacBook so she could access online banking.
Unscrupulous scammers posing as the children of their potential victims email hundreds of targets with a text or WhatsApp message claiming that they have a new number because they have lost or broken their phone.
Fraudsters are now prepared to play the long game in their latest despicable bid to prise cash from vulnerable people with ‘Hi mum’ scams. In one case, a scammer conducted a WhatsApp conversation with an elderly woman that lasted four days while pretending to be her daughter, before conning her into transferring £3,500 to pay for a desperately needed laptop
Then over several days, the scammer will affirm the idea that they are talking to their ‘child’ with innocent texts, even answering calls with static noises saying the microphone is broken on their spare phone.
Cyber security expert Professor Steven Murdoch warned Britons to be wary of these convincing ‘Hi mum’ cons, which are a type of Authorised Push Payment (APP) scam.
APP scams are when someone is tricked into sending money to a fraudster posing as a genuine payee, according to the Payment Systems Regulator.
The professor of security engineering at University College London told MailOnline: ‘A common strategy is to make it urgent. Something terrible is happening and if you do not pay it is something worse will. It puts people under pressure and makes people not think.’
He said the ‘Hi mum’ scam works slightly differently as ‘this one is over several days and last part is indicating urgency – but building trust over long period is different’.
Scammers used to more frequently ‘spoof’ numbers, making an incoming call look like it is a known number, but Prof Murdoch said that this is becoming less common as phone companies have taken steps to prevent this.
He added: ‘All banks have automated checks but how well they work will vary and they will not reveal publicly how they work as if people knew it would be easier to bypass.
‘Some of these systems are not as sophisticated as some people assume – it’s not often an advanced machine learning algorithm.’
He said experts create simple rules such as a transaction being flagged if it is to a new account and more than a certain amount – but that if criminals knew that amount they would ask for one penny less.
Offering advice to anyone worried about scams like ‘Hi mum’, Prof Murdoch said: ‘Take time to do anything and be very sceptical of anyone who says you have to act with urgency. If you are not sure, you should slow down and ask for help from someone you trust or call your bank.
Cyber security expert Professor Steven Murdoch warned Britons to be weary of ‘hi mum’ scams, which is a type of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud
Fortunately, Barclays put a block on the victim’s account, saving her money from the fraudster
‘If the banks give advice that works out badly they will reimburse you.’
He added that it was hard to give ‘universal advice’ as the nature of scams is constantly changing, but said that ;finding a way to talk to this person would have been a good idea’ but that criminals can use voice deepfakes to impersonate people.
The victim told MailOnline she received a text from an unrecognised number saying: ‘Hi Mum, I am an idiot I have dropped my phone and screen is smashed so am using my old phone, can you message me on this number so I know you have received it!’
The woman responded: ‘Hi – yes I have it’
Her ‘child’ replied: ‘Great – I am just transferring all the data from my broken phone onto this one.’
She received no texts the next day, but a day after they had a text asking: ‘Hey, are you busy?’
The victim replied: ‘Just got back from a nice lunch with Gill [a friend] – I am available now.’
She then tried to call her ‘daughter’ but only heard crackling noises at the other end.
The scammer texted: ‘Hi – did you just try to call me? The mic on my old phone is water damaged so I can’t take calls on it at the moment.
‘I am having real trouble paying bills because my banking app doesn’t recognise this phone.’
‘Oh no how annoying,’ the woman replied.
A day later, the scammer pounced and asked for a favour, texting: ‘I have a problem can you help me out?’
‘Of course I will if I can,’ she replied.
‘I still cannot connect to my banking app and I need to pay an invoice. It’s for £3,385.58. I know it’s a lot but I will pay you back tomorrow as soon as the banks are open.’
The woman asked: ‘What is it for?’
Her ‘daughter’ replied: ‘It’s for a Macbook I bought and I need to pay so I can use it to get my phone sorted. Can you pay it in for me?’
The mother replied: ‘OK I will try.’
The scammer responded by sending over a name, sort code and account number for they payment.’
She entered the details and tried to transfer the money through Barclays online banking but the payment would not go through as it asked for security checks.
The victim told her daughter: ‘Oh no it’s asking for security checks, it hasn’t gone through yet.’
But the scammer reassured their ‘mother’: ‘Probably take a while as you’ve not paid into this account before.’
But then Barclays blocked the victim’s account and prevented any payment from going through, and she texted her ‘daughter’: ‘What the hell – Barclays have blocked my accounts I will ring them!’
The victim said how the slow communication ‘lulled me into a false sense of security’ even after her daughter had warned her about the ‘hi mum’ scam.
She told MailOnline: ‘I knew all about the “hi mum” scam – my daughter had warned me and I had read the stories. But this is different, not asking for money at first.
‘I was busy, and it just lulled me into a false sense of security when they didn’t ask for money up front and didn’t even send that many texts. When they eventually did ask I was just worried and wanted to help as fast as possible.
‘I feel an utter fool, and completely violated. It just horrific that people are out there doing this.
‘I am so grateful to Barclays fraud team for spotting this and stopping it so fast.’
Barclays have been approached for comment.
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