BBC News was told by Vivian Gabb, age 59 from London, that she has been scammed and lost her life savings through a simple phishing email by cyber criminals. Vivian Gabb said, while she was in the middle of buying a house, she received an email stating that she needed to transfer her deposit of nearly £50,000 ($78,000), and unfortunately she did.
Vivian Gabb did not know that her email account had been allegedly hacked and monitored by cyber criminals, where the cyber criminals was just waiting for the right time to siphon off such a large amount of money from Gabb.
The cyber criminals already set up a bank account at TSB (Trustee Savings Bank) under the same name as the lawyer of Vivian Gabb - Attorney Chris Smee.
Vivian Gabb received a deceptive email from the cyber thief featured a familiar and friendly language, such as "Dear Viv" which the criminals used in previous legitimate emails. This fueled Gabb's belief that her emails were spied on, as this statedment was in the email, "We have changed who we bank with, I forgot to inform you of the changes in the email I sent you yesterday."
Gabb a self-employed Pilate's teacher and tennis coach, realized a couple of days after the transaction, that her lawyer's firm Barnes & Partners had not received the money. Then her bank confirmed that she was a victim of a scam and the cyber criminals had already ran off with the fund from a fake account.
Gabb's bank Halifax and TSB, said that they were unable to do anything about the scam.
Gabb stated in the Daily Mail ,"Neither bank seems very troubled by my predicament. I am absolutely at my wits' end with what has happened to me. There is no system of redress and I seem to meet a closed door every way I turn," and she added: "Halifax has categorically told me they do not consider themselves to be in any way responsible and TSB will not talk to me due to data protection issues."
