Only Fools and Horses star Sue Holderness has revealed she almost lost her entire pension pot after fraudsters successfully conned her out of hundreds of pounds. Famous for playing Marlene in the BBC comedy, the 73-year-old actress says she was targeted on two occasions by scammers who hacked into her computer.
Holderness is now supporting a campaign, Take Five To Stop Fraud, which provides advice to help people protect themselves from financial fraud. Fraud accounts for 40 percent of recorded crime, but only two percent of police funding is dedicated to tackling it.
Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women, Holderness said: “I think its a very important message because every time you turn on the radio or the television, somebody is talking about the scam or the fraud that they have suffered, and it seems to be mostly over-65s.”
“I fall very well into that category as I’m over 70. And they target us because we’re nervous of the internet and I suppose because we’ve got pensions and savings and so we’re the perfect people to have a go at.”
Once hackers have got hold of your personal information, they can run riot, with some able to steal your pension and other savings. Speaking on her own experience, Holderness said: “I was just on my computer, doing emails or something, and suddenly there was this loud alarm rather like an ambulance siren, ‘Emergency, you are being hacked. Touch none of your devices, phone this number’. Which I did without a second thought.”
“I phoned the number and the noise is still going, it’s terribly frightening. And nothing I did would take the noise away and they say, ‘Alright I will take over your computer and sort this out’.”
Holderness then says they took over her computer, which they ‘fixed’ and said it would cost £68 for a year’s protection, which she paid immediately. A year later the exact same scenario happened again, she then paid them hundreds of pounds for five year’s protection.
Holderness said: “As soon as I ended the call, I knew that I’d made a mistake and I rang my bank and I said, ‘This is what’s happened to me and please when this £680, whatever it was, comes in would you (help). I think I’ve been scammed.'”
“And they said of course you’ve been scammed. No question about it. He said the best thing you’ve done is contact us quickly, now contact action fraud.”
The actress urges anyone who thinks they may have been scammed not to feel embarrassed, but to contact their bank and Action Fraud immediately. It isn’t the first time Holderness has been targeted, the PA news agency report, as on one occasion all of her contacts received a message saying she had lost her phone while in Russia and needed £2000 to get home. Three of her friends fell for the scam and offered to send the money.
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