Good Morning Britain's Katy Rickitt has issued viewers with an urgent warning while appearing alongside her husband Adam, after the pair were defrauded of almost £50,000 in a shocking bank scam.
The 44-year-old Hollyoaks star took to his social media account to share the news with fans, after falling victim to an intricate and elaborate act of fraud. He also claims that the scammers 'knew everything about him'.
The actor said that he had received a text from a number alleging to be Barclays bank, warning that there had been 'suspicious activity' on his account - before receiving a call from an 0845 number, claiming to be the same bank's fraud department.
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The Mirror reports that the married couple appeared on ITV's GMB to detail their horrifying ideal, while hosts Susanna Reid and Ed Balls listened in despair. 38-year-old wife Katy, confirmed that their bank has since reimbursed the couple with the funds taken after assessing the case - but said there are lessons to be learned from the ploy.
Speaking from Cheshire alongside husband Adam, she said: “As many people who I've interviewed in the past will say, there’s nothing like something happening to you to make you frantically look for every answer you can go for. We have pulled our hair out over the last seven days. He had three hours of hell and we went through everything with a fine-tooth comb.”
She continued: “The reason we wanted to come on today is to try and help anybody – even one person – not get scammed. This guy was his best friend, he was stopping him from getting defrauded, although it turned out he was the fraudster.
“So if your bank rings you, hang up the phone and call the number on the back of your card so you 100 percent know you are getting through to your bank. We’ve learnt that the hard way.”
She added: “If this happens to you, and this is what we’ve tortured ourselves with over the last week, it’s actually a real gamble whether you will get your money back. It's up to [the banks] whether they deem you to be ‘grossly negligent’. According to Which?, only 42 percent get their money back through the bank’s scheme.
“You then go onto the financial ombudsman, which has a 70 percent success rate, but that can take months and years.
“We know people in our town that have had something similar happen to them and are still waiting to get their money back. We’ve had people massage us saying, ‘Our mental health is going down the drain because we’re still waiting’, so we want this to change for other people.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
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