A woman from Essex lost £30,000 to a cruel investment scam while she was caring for her dying mother.

Mary Davy (not her real name) was “disgusted and shaken” when the scam, which plunged her into credit card debt, came to light.

The 60-year-old was tricked by scammers into believing her investment had grown to £65,000 but, when she tried to withdraw her money and close her account, she was left high and dry.

The fake online trading platforms she had been using disappeared along with her cash.

Mary, who lives between Basildon and Romford, said: “I felt really stupid and gullible. I was shaken.”

The scammers even phoned Mary while she was with her mother in hospital, constantly harassing her to invest more money.

“I said ‘you need to stop phoning me because I can’t even think about this’,” she added. “They stopped for a day or two, and then started emailing and ringing again, all the time hassling me to invest more.”

National Fraud Helpline solicitors have successfully recovered about half of Mary’s money from NatWest Bank.

The no win, no fee law firm will seek to recover the remainder of the lost funds via the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Leo McGowan, a lawyer at National Fraud Helpline, said: ‘Our client was vulnerable at the time of the scam because she was busy caring for her ill mother. The scammers clearly saw this as an opportunity to exploit her.

‘We’re delighted that we have managed to recover half of the lost money and we’re working hard to recover the rest.

‘Investment platforms are becoming increasingly sophisticated and realistic. Our fear is that this is getting worse as criminals adopt generative AI to create new fake websites sites.’

Speaking of the money that has been recouped, Mary said: “I thought the money had gone.

“At least now I can pay my credit card off.”

Mary’s nightmare began in January 2024 when she saw an advert on Facebook for a trading platform which claimed to use artificial intelligence (AI) to make trades for her.

After clicking through to a website and filling in her details, she received a call from someone calling themselves Kevin Dekker.

He contacted her by phone and encouraged her to invest an initial £199.

She hoped to grow her savings after splitting up with her partner of 10 years and giving him some money to help him start a new life.

“I was low, and feeling a bit out of pocket, but I thought ‘I’m going to take control of this and try to get some money back’,” she said. “That was obviously a mistake.”

Dekker set up an account on the fake investment platform, and Mary could see her initial investment supposedly growing when the scammer suggested she invest more money.

She said: “He would call me every other day to let me know how the account was going and he then asked for some more money to invest because it was doing well. I could see it looked like it was making money, so why not?”

She made two card payments of £4,000 for investments in bitcoin and commodities, and still the money in her account grew.

Dekker then suggested she invest even more because of an impending bitcoin event which would lower the supply of the cryptocurrency entering the market, increasing its scarcity and therefore its value.

Mary contacted NatWest when two payments of £10,000 she tried to send via her banking app failed because they exceeded her payment limits.

She was told she could increase the limits in the app, with no questions asked, and the payments were duly processed.

According to the fake platform, her investment was now worth about £35,000, and her suspicions were raised when she tried to withdraw £5,000.

“They blocked it at their end, which I thought was a bit weird, and said there was not enough equity in the account,” she said.

Dekker then told her that her account had dropped down to about £1,000.

She said: “They told me I needed to put some more money in because the account was in jeopardy. I didn’t really know what to do, but it still didn’t occur to me that they’d taken the money.”

She scraped together the last of her savings, and borrowed £5,000 from a credit card to invest £9,995 in June, last year.

“I was panicking and it was so stressful,” she said. “It was the last thing I thought of when I went to bed, and the first thing I thought of when I woke up.

“I wasn’t sleeping properly, and I was really anxious about it.”

By now, she had been transferred to a different online trading platform, and she could see her balance once again growing.

When it reached £65,000, she decided it was time to cash out.

“I said to Dekker, ‘I’ve had enough of this roller coaster ride and I would like to close the account and take out whatever’s in there’.

“He got a bit edgy with me, and said ‘what’s wrong with you? Everyone wants to make money’. I said ‘no, I just wanted it to stop’.”

Dekker finally agreed to close the account and refund her money in February this year, but when she checked the website, it had gone.

She never heard from Dekker again.

We have highlighted this case in the media.

Have you lost money to a scam? Contact National Fraud Helpline. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our  Claim Form.