A young Scots woman has hit out at 'scumbag' WhatsApp scammers who duped her dad out of almost £2,000 by pretending to be her.
Lauren, from Livingston, told of her horror after the con artist sent a series of text messages to her dad on Tuesday evening.
The scammer pretended to be the 25-year-old and claimed she had lost her phone and was getting in touch from a new number.
The cold-hearted crook said the bank had refused to accept payment for a bill because of the number change and claimed to desperately need cash to pay an urgent fee.
Unbeknown to Lauren's dad, there was no bill and he was not speaking with his daughter.
He then transferred over £1,960 of his hard earned cash as the scammer requested the reference to be "markt course fee".
But luckily the Royal Bank of Scotland didn't transfer the money immediately due to the large transaction amount and the bank blocked the money from leaving his account.
In the messages, the con artist says: "Just got off the phone to my bank and they're saying I can't make any bank transfers to pay a bill. It's because I've got a new number and can't receive any texts from my old sim.
"This day just keeps on getting worse... Could you help me pay a bill? I'll transfer it back when mu number has been updated. Xx"
After Lauren's dad attempted to make the transaction, the scammer then questioned the delay in the cash arriving and seemed to become agitated.
The later asked: "Has it left your balance?"
And questioned: "Which bank did you send from dad...as it still hasn't arrived. X"
Lauren only learned of the scam when when her dad phoned her the next morning to discuss the transfer.
She told The Record how she was left sickened by the cruel scam, asking 'how can they sleep at night?'.
Lauren said: "The texts were sent on Tuesday night and my dad phoned me on Wednesday morning but he had messaged me on Facebook to phone him as I had lost my number.
"He still thought it was me. He said the bank had phoned him to discuss that payment and I said 'what payment'?
"He told me he got a text the night before saying and I had lost my phone and my heart just dropped. The bank had phoned him at 9am and asked him to physically speak to me about the transfer.
"It was awful, I've never heard of anything like this. It was really, really scary. He had been thinking all night that I had lost my phone and he would have been worries about me.
"These people prey on vulnerability. In the messages my dad even says this is more than his monthly wage and these people are happy for him to be left with no wages.
"I don't know how they sleep at night. They are scumbags."
Lauren is now desperate to raise awareness of the incident so no one else is conned by the cruel scam which also tries to make people feel embarrassed so they don't want to tell anyone what has happened.
She said: "The scam is so convincing and WhatsApp is a trusted app. I want to make sure people know as not everyone is as savy as a young person always on their phone.
"They can even get you on WhatsApp now. We are always quite aware of the usual scams like the Royal Mail texts but this is different.
"It has happened to six people this week who have messaged me about it."
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