Martin says Des is “brave and admirable” for speaking out and telling his story as “a warning flag” for others.
He adds that scammers are “psychologically adept at manipulating us, use huge online and intellectual resources in order to steal our money… falling for scams does not make you a mug – makes you a victim, but it doesn’t make you a mug”.
Offering his tips for avoiding becoming a victim of a scam, Martin says beware of “urgency”.
“The more urgent and the less people you can tell – the more secret, the more likely it is to be a scam,” he says.
Another tip is if you’re cold-called by somebody from your bank or a company you deal with, asking for information, “hang up politely” and call them back.
“I would preferably call back on a different phone, just in case they’re keeping the dial number on,” Martin advises.
He says “if you don’t have another phone, you could wait 10 or 15 minutes or call a family member first”.
His adds that people should “be very careful” when being asked to click on a link “or if you receive a text asking you to reply ‘stop’.
“You have to be aware that by sending stop, you’ve just notified them that you’re a real mobile phone number and you could get more scams on the back,” he says.
Since reporting the scam to the police, two of the banks Des took out money with have cancelled his loans with them.
He still owes £20,000 plus interest of almost £6,000 to two separate companies and is in the process of speaking to the financial ombudsman about the options available to him.
Having finally met Martin, and told his story of being scammed, Des says he’s grateful to have had the opportunity as “Martin is a good guy”.
“[He] said after the podcast that I have probably helped a lot of people… I was very pleased I [spoke out].”
A spokesperson for Revolut said it was sorry to hear about any instance where “customers are targeted by ruthless and highly sophisticated criminals”.
The statement added: “Revolut works hard and invests heavily to protect our customers as best we can through our fraud prevention technologies, analysing over half a billion transactions a month.”
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