A crook conned an 86-year-old man out of £18,000 by telling him he needed to pay for his medicine after Brexit .
The scam started on July 5 when Harry had a phone call from a man who announced himself as being from the “NHS Brexit Team”.
The caller asked if he could confirm what medication he was being prescribed.
Thinking he was speaking to someone from the NHS, Harry, from Cardiff, obliged.
The caller then informed Harry that two of the items he had listed were on the “warning list”.
He explained this meant there would be shortages of these medicines as soon as Brexit happened on October 31.
Harry was immediately alarmed and asked what he could do.
Of course the caller had all the answers. In short, he explained to Harry that the NHS was able to “advance order” these medicines from Europe but Harry would have to pay for this up front.
He said the NHS would pay him the money back in three equal instalments in November, December and January.
Harry asked why he had to pay. He had not done this before.
The caller explained it was the only way the NHS was allowed to advance order medicines for individuals. Harry agreed and asked how much he needed to pay.
The caller then asked Harry to confirm what the cleared balance was of all his bank and building society accounts. He explained that he had to note this to satisfy his bosses that he was not taking too much money from patients.
Harry had a total of £25,312, some of which was in a savings account. He was then told he needed to transfer £18,000 and the account details were provided. He has never heard from the caller again and, of course, has not received any medicine.
For clarity, the NHS are not running any such scheme and certainly would not ask you to pay money like this.
I have advised Harry to speak to his bank and explain the fraud.
Harry’s son Graham contacted me about this. I’ve heard of a few Brexit scams but this is the worst.
