A BRIT mum has been left fuming after “terrifying” scammers on banking app Revolut left her teen daughter penniless amid a £1,200 con.
Nicky Barrowcliffe claims that daughter Mollie, 18, was left with zero funds in her account after a series of scam calls which led the teen to fork over the funds via the app.
The 44-year-old teacher from Great Barford, Bedfordshire, says that Mollie had been at home when she received the calls on Monday from scammers claiming she owed them tax money.
The teen had initially hung up on the scammers but was allegedly threatened to be taken to court and that her driving license and bank accounts would be revoked if she did not pay the £1,247 she “owed”.
The helpless teen – intimidated by the demands she was being given – was forced to call her grandmother to ask for further funds after telling the scammers she didn’t have enough to pay them.
The family have now claimed that Mollie has been left penniless and has had very limited help in retrieving her now-stolen funds from both Revolut and Barclays, who Mollie banks with.
Speaking to Nicky today, the mum explained: “[Mollie] received a call from a mobile number which she answered.
“It was automated, saying she owed £1,247 and that she needed to speak to someone.
“She pressed the number it told her to. She was then put through to a man calling himself ‘Daniel Garcia’ and gave his HMRC number, case ref and a warrant number.
“He told her that a tax man came to the house sometime back in March and they thought she was running away from paying her taxes.
“She said he was very forceful and threatening, telling her that criminal enforcement would occur if she didn’t comply.
“He then told her it had been passed onto HM courts and Tribunal Service and that she’d get a call from them after he’d finished his call.
“She was told court orders are in place. That call finished and an Indian lady called on an 0207 number.
“My daughter was scared and intimidated by this woman, who was saying that her driving license and bank accounts would be seized, and her name will have a red mark against it.
“She was told to pay the amount in full or there would be two options to her: one, dissolve in court but she would likely lose and face imprisonment for a year or more or two: a government warrant will find her.
“My daughter said she didn’t have the money, only £900. The lady demanded she borrow the extra £300 but not to say what it was for, just say it was for an urgent bill.
“Before my daughter had messaged her grandmother to ask for it, the woman told her to download Revolut and open an account (she didn’t have one).
“She was told how to do this and felt forced to do it. She was petrified. The woman instructed her to make five separate payments of £180, which my daughter did.
“It was then that she messaged her granny, who called my young son as she thought it very odd for her to be asking for this amount of money.
“Her grandmother told her to hang up and that it was a scam, but Mollie didn’t believe her and told her that the woman had proved it by showing her the number matched with the Royal Courts of Justice.
“I returned home from an appointment at this point, to find my daughter crying hysterically and making no sense. I took the phone from her and asked who I was talking to.
“The woman said she wanted to speak to ‘the other girl’ and when I continued my question, she hung up.”
Nicky claims she pleaded for help from Action Fraud as well as Barclays, however contacting Revolut proved “frustrating”, with the company allegedly saying they could not help.
She added: “Revolut was frustrating as there is no number you can call, you have to do an online chat.
“We did an online chat yesterday afternoon where he seemed to be quite helpful and apologetic that this had happened.
“However, late last night, Mollie got a message from them [stating they couldn’t help]. I can’t emphasise how scared and hysterical she was [..]
“She just wants what is hers. She had only paid the cheque in last week and was going to move it into her nationwide savings account at the weekend.”
A spokesperson for Revolut said: “We are very sorry to hear about Ms Barrowcliffe’s case, or any instance where our customers are targeted by ruthless and highly sophisticated criminals.
“Revolut provided Ms Barrowclffe with targeted impersonation scam specific warnings.
“Unfortunately, Revolut’s interventions were not heeded and we subsequently processed the transactions in line with our legal obligations and our customer’s instructions.
“Revolut is currently working with the partner bank involved in this incident to help recover the lost funds.
“Revolut is deeply concerned that large numbers of frauds are being enabled across the industry by criminals using fake and spoofed phone calls.
“If customers are in doubt, we encourage them to reach out to us via in-app chat for support.”
A Barclays spokesperson said: “The protection of our customers’ funds and data is of the utmost importance, and we have every sympathy for our customer who was the victim of a sophisticated impersonation scam.
“Our investigation shows our customer transferred the funds from their Barclays account to their own account with another bank and the scam took place from there.
“However, as a gesture of goodwill, and in recognition that this initial transfer was out of the ordinary for our customer among other factors, we have refunded them in full.”
Bedfordshire Police has been approached for comment.
