Britons are warned to remain vigilant as cases in the UK have increased up to 400 percent since 2015. SIM cards are at the heart of this scam which sees fraudsters steal people’s identities and their money. On Rip Off Britain, Wendy Darby explained how she fell victim to SIM-swap fraud, and how these scammers violated her privacy and took out loans in her name.
She said: “I felt devastated and I felt exhausted with it all.
“It was constant trying to sort my life out.”
In February 2022, Wendy was having a dinner party when she received two unexpected texts from Tesco Mobile, her phone provider, confirming that she had requested a new SIM card.
“I thought, ‘What’s happening there?’ because I haven’t requested a new sim so I just dismissed it after that really,” she said.
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This was the beginning of a fast moving targeted fraud. Her phone lost service but Wendy thought nothing of it until the next morning when it was still causing her problems.
Whilst trying to register her complaint online with her providers she noticed some strange activity in her bank account. Someone had added £5,000 to it, which she thought was “very strange”.
By 9am, £10,000 had entered Wendy’s account and she started to get worried. Someone seemed to have control of her account.
After speaking to the people at her bank, they revealed that not only was money coming into her account, but…
