- Former firefighter was duped in sophisticated fraud recovery scam
- The victim had previously lost £14,500 in crypto scam
- Fraudsters told victim they could recover lost scam money
We helped a grandfather claim back more than £65,000 from a fraud recovery scam.
The former firefighter has spoken of the mental torture and embarrassment of losing money in to scammers for a second time after it left him with a mountain of debt.
Paul Arnold (not his real name), 73, had previously lost £14,500 to a crypto scam and received a call from someone a few months later claiming that they could get his money back.
The caller pretended to be from a financial services firm and told Paul that they had traced the money he had lost to the previous scam and that there was a crypto account which was still in his name.
Paul, from Cornwall, said he was at a low ebb at the time, and the man calling himself Gabriel continually rang him encouraging him to use their fraud recovery services.
“He persistently chased me and chased me,” said the grandfather-of-three. “He even contacted me when I was on holiday in Gran Canaria. In the end I blocked him, but then he got hold of me again on a different number.
“I should have just hung up, but I didn’t. He sounded so professional, almost to the point of being totally arrogant. I ended up believing him.”
Eventually, the scammer wore Paul down, and he agreed to work with them to withdraw the money that was allegedly sitting in a crypto account.
But the fraudsters then orchestrated an elaborate scam that saw Paul hand over £66,500 from his business Co-Op Bank account between December 2024 and January 2025.
Paul was told to make six payments ranging from £7,500 to £18,500 in just over three weeks before he could withdraw the money from his crypto account.
Gabriel told him to make payments because of anti-money laundering regulations and a failed verification process, among other bogus reasons.
He even received fake emails from a bank and crypto exchange to make the ruse look more convincing.
Paul said: “He said I needed to do this and do that, and I said ‘I can’t keep sending money if you’re not giving me any back’.”
In January, he was told he needed to make one final payment of £7,500 and all of his money would be released, half one day, and half the next.
“I didn’t get the money on the Friday or over the weekend and, on the Monday, I phoned this person and I just got blanked,” he added.
“So I sent them a message via WhatsApp, very short and sweet and told him what I thought of him. Then I never heard anything else.
“I’d invested so much in the hope I would get it back, but I didn’t. I still get so upset about this.
“It was an extremely worrying time. Mentally, I was in a bit of a mess, but I couldn’t tell anybody from sheer embarrassment.”
Paul took out four loans to find the money to pay the scammers’ fees, with unsustainable monthly repayments totaling £1,250.
His bank never once queried the payments to the fake firm which was a clone of a genuine financial services company.
Fortunately, Paul contacted National Fraud Helpline solicitors to help recover his money from Co-Op Bank. The law firm has been able to get all of the £65,000 money refunded.
He said he was “amazed” when he got the phone call telling him to expect the money in his bank account the next day.
“I thought I’d lost the lot, I’d rearrange my finances and do what I could,” he said. “Then I saw about National Fraud Helpline solicitors and thought ‘I’ve got nothing to lose’.
“I was driving along the M62 when I got the call telling me they’d secured all my money back. I wouldn’t say I nearly crashed the car, but I had to go into the slow lane and savour the phone call. It was brilliant, and now I’m trying to pay off the loans.”
Fiona Bresnen, a lawyer at National Fraud Helpline, which runs the website, www.nationalfraudhelpline.co.uk, said: “These sort of recovery scams are on the rise. Once the fraudsters have taken your money it is easy for them to pose as a legitimate company and claim to know where your missing funds are.
“Anyone who has lost money to a scam should be very wary of someone contacting them out-of-the-blue claiming to be able to trace the lost money.
‘‘We are delighted that we were able to recover all of the client’s money.”
The story appeared in the media on an anonymous basis: Grandad loses £65k in fraud recovery scam.
Have you lost money to a fraud recovery scam? Contact National Fraud Helpline. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our Claim Form.