A shocking ITV Tonight investigation has found scammers stole £9.4billion from Britons last year through everything from fake investment portfolios to fictitious job offers
When wellbeing therapist Nancy Laats wanted to invest a £28,000 inheritance, she was pleased to find an ethical way to grow her cash. She staked an initial £13,000 in Unique Property Investment Group, an assisted living company which promised a monthly 25% return. After receiving five regular monthly payments of £275, she invested a further £15,000, but two weeks later Unique emailed her saying they had instructed administrators. All of her money was gone.
Nancy features in an ITV Tonight investigation which found scammers stole £9.4billion from Britons last year through everything from fake investment portfolios to fictitious job offers. Unique’s administrators report showed that, although investors like Nancy put over £12.5million into the company, it had just two properties worth £315,000, connected to a genuine Housing Association. But other contracts failed to materialise.
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Nancy tells Tonight: “They sent me amazing professional brochures. They said they were in communication with YMCA, it was government backed.” The Tonight team contacted the government, the YMCA and Revolut but they all said they had no connection with the Unique business. There was “nil” in all the company accounts and just over £1,000,000 paid in inter-company loans.
Nancy says: “I went through a few weeks of calling myself stupid… really pulling myself to shreds.” Unique told Tonight it did not guarantee returns and investors were required to complete risk acknowledgments. Denying any wrongdoing, it said intercompany loans were “part of the company’s development strategy”. It added “financial and operational pressures” contributed to the company going into administration.
The Financial Ombudsman accepted one investor’s case as fraud, and Nancy hopes her bank will do the same. She then might get her money back under new reimbursement rules introduced in October 2024 for victims of Authorised Push Payments.
Scammers also hijack personal relationships. Sarah Rodriguez fell foul of this when she saw an Instagram friend selling highly sought-after Oasis tickets last year and agreed to buy two for £150 each. Asked for her Ticketmaster details, they provided bank details and she tried to transfer the cash.
But Instagram friend Jonny Stanton knew nothing about the tickets. He says: “People were saying, ‘hey mate, have you got those Oasis tickets?’ Which kind of baffled me.” Sarah’s bank blocked her payment but Jonny had to watch the scam unfold, with friends sending him screenshots of messages apparently from him, as the crooks stole around £600.
Sam Richardson, from consumer group Which? says: “We’d really warn people against buying tickets on social media.” Meta, owner of Instagram, said they “are continuously working to stop bad actors who exploit people”.
Another popular scam is websites using AI to deceive consumers. Stevie Holmes, who runs Scarlett Jewellery, suddenly started receiving messages asking for refunds last summer. It transpired a website with a similar name based in Hong Kong claimed it was having a sale. But when Stevie examined the website, she says it was obvious the “owner” was AI-generated. She says: “She was holding a thing in her hand that is not a jewellery tool.”
The Hong Kong firm didn’t respond to Tonight’s request for a comment. The programme’s investigators spoke to specialists working to stamp out scammers. Visa’s Cyber Fusion Centre uses AI tools to detect potential threats from crooks trying to steal customer data. Mandy Lamb, of Visa, says: “You might see the same value of transactions flowing at pace from multiple consumers into a single account.”
Last April it was reported that 800 cases of QR fraud in one year had cost victims £3.5million. Local authorities have been plagued with rogue QR codes being placed over real ones in car parks. Joseph Gash, of Huddersfield, visited a car park in Leeds for a trip to the cinema, saying: “When I scanned the QR code on the ticket machine, I’ve clicked pay, and it’s not gone through, so I thought, ‘I’ll sort it out later’.” Half an hour later his bank called saying someone had tried to buy £500 in Apple gift cards. It blocked the transactions and the fake QR code was removed.
Lloyds bank has reported an increase of 230% in job scams, or task scams, in the last year. Simon Miller, director of Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System, explains: “Task scams are a direct offer of work – it may be reviewing articles, reviewing films – predicated on you making a payment to access that work.
“The end result is always the same. There is no financial payout. The only payout is to the fraudsters.” He warns: “Fraud accounts for 44% of all crime. Consumers are hit by about £10billion of scams each year, and these numbers are only going up.”
*Rising Scams: What You Need To Know, 7:30pm Thursday ITV1 and ITVX
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