'˜No morals whatsoever': NI man conned out of £60k with promise of shares left to him by his late mother

The partnership organisation, which aims to raise awareness of scams and how to prevent them, posted details of the incident on its Facebook page earlier today.

The post reveals how the victim was conned out of the money over a period of time after a man contacted him claiming he had been left shares by his late mother.

It said: “Here’s a report we have received that will make your blood boil. These scammers have no morals whatsoever!!

“A man from the Lisburn area has been defrauded out of over £60,000. In May 2018 he got a call from a scammer saying he was from a big law firm in America. The scammer told the gentleman that his late mother had left him thousands of shares in an American company. The scammer said, however, that the shares were restricted and he would need payment of nearly £6,000 was needed to ‘unrestrict them.’ The gentleman paid this money but then the scammer kept coming up with ways to get more money out of him; Payment for a new share certificate; payment for warrant purchases; then he got an email purportedly from the US taxman saying that because he wasn’t a US citizen he had to pay tax. These payments were all for several thousand pounds, with the largest being over £13,000. Only recently did the gentleman learn it was a scam and there are no shares for him in America.”

The ScamWise NI post concludes with a warning: “Remember; if it seems too good to be true then it probably is!”

For more information about scams and how to avoid them log on to www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/information-scams