A WOMAN has revealed that she was scammed into giving £2,400 to fraudsters posing as lotto winners.
Clare O’Connor, 50, from Kent believed she was being given £100,000 by EuroMillions winners Jess and Joe Thwaite, which she intended to use to help her mum pay her bills amid the cost of living crisis.
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The Thwaites became well known to the public after winning the record-breaking £184m jackpot in May.
However, Clare’s suspicions were raised when the con artists kept asking for payments to release the supposed gift from a cryptocurrency wallet.
She handed over two grand before deciding that something was not right and reporting the scam to the police and Action Fraud, on the advice of a friend.
Clare said: “I just wanted to help my mum out and pay for the bills.
“She’s a pensioner and needed help with the cost of living at the moment – I needed to sort myself out too.”
She first made contact with the imposters through a Facebook group that they had set up to entice unknowing victims, called the “Joe Jess Thwaite Help Foundation”.
After reaching out to them on Facebook Messenger, the fraudsters quickly replied offering £100,000.
They told Clare to set up a cryptocurrency account on a site called cryptofxinvesting and to deposit at least £300 to set up the currency wallet.
The £100k sum…
