Friendship fraud: warnings of rise in ‘insidious’ scam targeting older people

Fraudsters exploit isolation and search for human contact to often devastating effect. These are steps you can take to avoid them As you have got older, retirement has left you with more time on your hands. Loneliness has set in. Luckily, you have found a friend through one of the online motoring groups you are in, and a close bond has blossomed over your common interest in cars. But your new friend has found themselves short when it comes to paying for their university textbooks, and has asked you for £50. It’s not much, and you get on so well that you agree to pay via bank transfer. It will be the first of many requests for payment that the “friend” makes, all for seemingly small amounts, but which mount up as part of a structured “friendship fraud” that preys on older and vulnerable people who are in search of human contact. TSB is reporting a rise in scams where criminals are using social media to befriend people before defrauding them out of thousands of pounds, often over lengthy periods of time. The scam has many of the same characteristics as romance fraud, where victims are duped into thinking they have found a partner, and preys on older people who may have bee