This Morning's Alison Hammond was in disbelief as a nan shared how she was a victim of fraud.
Alison hosted today's edition of ITV's flagship daytime programme alongside Dermot O'Leary. The two were joined by Eileen Allen, who spoke about how she was scammed out of £10,000 on eBay.
The nan-of-five hails from Wirral and her ordeal started when she spotted an advert for a motorhome on the online marketplace last month. Eileen initially replied to the £27,500 listing for a 2017 Elddis Evolution 196 asking if the seller would take £24,000, and after no reply she contacted them via mobile and upped her offer to £26,000.
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The seller told Eileen how there was already an offer on the table but she would rather sell it to someone like Eileen, who was hoping to treat her family to the motorhome.
The initial payment of £7,800 was sent to a fraudster pretending to be a 78-year-old bereaved widow named 'Jemma Hancox'. However, it took longer than expected to process and Eileen said the seller called her the next day crying and told her she would have to give her the money back as she was "scared" the remainder of the funds wouldn't go through on the day they had arranged for collection.
Eileen agreed to pay a further £2,200 in order to secure the motorhome, which she said she would pick up on Sunday, April 30, from an address in Sheffield. Alarm bells started to ring for Eileen on the evening of April 28 when the scammer said the money had not yet landed in her account.
The former NHS worker contacted Nationwide bank, who confirmed the money had been sent. She told Alison and Dermot: "I rang her and said I'll give you my bank details, can you please transfer the money back to me. That was the end of it and I never heard from her again."
Eileen has since been in contact with the motorhome's legitimate owner, after seeing the same vehicle listed for sale on Auto Trader. He claims he reported the listing to eBay "several times" on Thursday, April 27, but the post wasn't taken down until the following evening.
She issued a warning to anyone in a similar position about the dangers of buying an item over eBay. Alison was in shock after Eileen's story and branded it "exhausting".
Eileen was joined by fraud expert, Jenny Radcliffe, who shared how people can avoid fraud. She said: "Research that listing. Look at the history of how long it's been on there. Is it on anywhere else?
"Do what we call a reverse image search on a search engine? We can look up images if you cut and paste an image into a search engine, it will look for that image and that will show you if it's been used anywhere else. You can also check history of motor vehicles on lots of sites. Check the seller.
"But, most of all, if it's too good to be true. If it's a great bargain, stop, don't react at the moment and don't move any money off the app."
A spokesperson from eBay told This Morning: "We strongly recommend anyone buying a vehicle on eBay view it in person before transferring any money. In a very rare instance that one of our users is a victim of the scam, we advise them to report it immediately to the local police force, Action Fraud and eBay. In this case, we can confirm we have taken action against the seller."
A spokesperson from Barclays bank said: "We have every sympathy with our customer, who has been the victim of an online purchase scam. We explained the payment would be cancelled and urged them to not proceed with any further payments unless the vehicle had been viewed in person. Regrettably our customer did not heed the advice given and chose to make another payment the same day."
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