A Nottingham scam victim who lost £15,000 in an investment scam has turned to National Fraud Helpline for help.
Jakub Siwiak, 50, was conned out of the money by a fraudster who stole the identity of a legitimate stockbroker.
Mr Siwiak took out two loans to help fund the so-called investment and has been left with £1,300 a month repayments which he is struggling to afford.
The scam began after Mr Siwiak responded to a Facebook advert promising good returns on the foreign exchange markets.
“Falling victim to the scam has made me feel very bad,” he said. “I’m here on my own in England and my family is in Poland and I am supporting them. It’s made it very hard to do that.”
Mr Siwiak, who works as a crane operator and supervisor in Worksop, has enlisted the help of solicitors from National Fraud Helpline to try to recover his money from his bank, NatWest.
Banks have obligations from regulators to help protect their customers from fraud.
Lena Abuagla, of National Fraud Helpline, which runs the website www.nationalfraudhelpline.co.uk, said: “This is a really sad case of someone wanting to make some extra money to help his family.
“Scammers are experts at exploiting victims’ needs and desires for more money.
“Our client had made reasonable checks as to the authenticity of the investment opportunity but it was an incredibly convincing scam.
“Everyone needs to be very wary of investment opportunities that are made on social media platforms. The scammers are getting ever more sophisticated and convincing.
“We are here to help scam victims”
Mr Siwiak’s ordeal began in June, when he saw an advert on Facebook for an investment opportunity on the foreign exchange markets.
He connected via WhatsApp with the man claiming to be a fellow Pole.
After asking him for his stock broker licence number, he checked it against a list on the government website and it looked to be legitimate.
“The broker’s name was on it, and the licence number was correct,” added Mr Siwiak, “so at that point everything was looking normal and he seemed genuine.
“From the beginning I wasn’t thinking he was fake, because he provided very good answers to all the information I asked him about the stock market.
“He said I needed to put some money in my account to start playing on the stock market.”
The fake stockbroker encouraged him to take out a £10,000 loan saying that Mr Siwiak would make so much money it would be easy to pay it off within a month.
Mr Siwiak transferred the money via the legitimate crypto.com website, into a crypto currency wallet, and then on to the fake trading platform.
The bogus broker would give him, lists of stocks to invest in, and was in daily contact via WhatsApp voice call and messages, conveying a sense of urgency to make trades.
But that’s when things started to go wrong.
The scammer told Mr Siwiak he had made a mistake with one of the investments, and his money on the trading platform started to go down.
“He said I have to invest another amount of money to save the account so it won’t be closed down,” he said.
So Mr Siwiak took out a further personal loan of £3,000, and borrowed another £4,000 from his brother, transferring it all via crypto into the trading platform.
“He gave me another list of stocks and that started working, everything was going up again,” he said.
But then came another “mistake”, and he received a phone call informing him once again that his account would be closed if he didn’t invest another £4,000 to save it.
“I was at work at the time and I couldn’t talk,” said Mr Siwiak, “and I spoke with my team leader and told him what had happened.
“I looked at him and he looked at me and he asked me ‘are you thinking the same thing I’m thinking?’ Yes, we both realised it was a scam, and it made me feel so bad.
“I am struggling at the moment, and if I could get my money back it would help me a lot, because it would be easier for me to pay back the loans.”
Are you a scam victim who needs help? Contact National Fraud Helpline. Call 0333 0033218 or fill out our Claim Form.
