I was grieving my dad's death when I was targeted by scammers
A vulnerable teenager mourning the loss of his father was scammed out of his life savings by a sick fraudster who befriended him on social media and told him he was ‘making his dad proud’.
Max Greenhalgh, 19, from Chorley was struggling to deal with his father’s ‘unimaginable’ death in September last year when he was targeted by the scammer on Instagram just over three months later.
He said: “I’d made a promise to myself that I was going to make my dad proud, and started my own business day trading on foreign exchange markets.
“The scammer reached out to me, offering mentorship and promising me crazy numbers if I worked with him.
“He offered to take me under his wing and blasted me with pictures of him travelling the world with his girlfriend and with nice cars.
“I opened up to him about my dad, and shared all aspects of my life with him. He told me he’d help me make my dad proud. I trusted him so much - more than a mentor, he posed as my friend.”
Over two weeks in January Max ploughed £4,750 into a crypto wallet he believed was funding what turned out to be a fake trading account set up by the scammer.
He described as ‘earth-shattering’ the moment the fraudster came clean in a text message that read: ‘I’m sorry, I’ve done you dirty, this was all a lie and I’m keeping all the money.
‘I hope life gives you the best of it, keep trading, you’ll be amazing one day. I’m very sorry, you seem like a nice guy.’
Max, who was 18 at the time, added: “I felt like I’d let down my mum, my little sister and my girlfriend who was 18 at the time.
“I was so thoroughly embarrassed. I felt stupid and worthless. He left with zero pounds in my bank account.”
He also had to sell his father’s treasured BMW 3 series, which he had vowed to keep on despite crippling monthly insurance payments.
Max has now enlisted specialist fraud solicitors Richardson Hartley Law to help recover the money from his Santander bank.
Martin Richardson, Senior Partner, at Richardson Hartley Law which runs www.nationalfraudhelpline.co.uk, said: “This is such a sick and cruel scam. It never fails to amaze us just how heartless scammers can be.
“They prey on people when they’re at their most vulnerable and have no qualms about exploiting any situation. Our aim is to recover all of Max’s money for him.”
Richardson Hartley Law last week set up National Fraud Helpline which aims to help educate the public about the latest scams and how to avoid them.
When Max, a straight-A student, started trading he set up an account with a broker, but the scammer encouraged him to use a different broker and offered to set up an account for him.
He gave Max access to the account and told him to fund it with Bitcoin deposits to a crypto wallet.
Max could see the money going into his broker trading account, which had grown to £15,000 after a couple of weeks.
To celebrate, the scammer encouraged Max to buy a new car, a £6,500 2016 Mercedes, but to get his money out of the account he would need to pay a “tax” of two lots of £800.
He said: “I didn’t have the money so I ended up borrowing £1,600 off one of my best friends, who grew up very poor and saved every penny that he made.
“Friday rolls around and I’m about to go and get this new car, and everything’s looking good. I felt amazing about it.”
But half an hour before he was due to collect the car, for which his girlfriend had paid a £100 non refundable deposit, Max’s world fell apart with the scammer’s bombshell text message.
The broker trading account had been fake and the money in it entirely fictitious.
“The money I thought I was sending to the account through Bitcoin was going straight to his Bitcoin wallet, and he was keeping the real money,” said Max, who worked seven days a week in a call centre to clear some of his debts. “He would then show the exact same amount in the fake account to make it look as though the real money was in there.
“I was in a vulnerable position, and he capitalised on it. As soon as I told him about my dad, all he saw was money signs. I don’t know how he sleeps at night.
“Every day I wake up with a chip on my shoulder.
“It totally changes your perspective on everything. I don’t feel I can trust anyone now. When people tell me things, I’m immediately sceptical.
“If I could recover the money the first thing I’d do is pay my best friend back. He’s an amazing guy, an incredible person, but I almost feel guilty every time I see him because I'm the one who convinced him to pay this tax for me.”