68-year-old Martine Brees from Gembloux in the province of Namur has been scammed of no less than 135,000 euros. “All my money,” she sobs. The recently retired widow allowed herself to be captured and is extremely angry with herself. “I don’t understand how I could be so stupid.” But she wants to testify about it to spare others the same fate.
JV
Source:
SudInfo
She thought she could make a move with a savings account that promised a very nice interest rate. It was an account from the Lithuanian bank Revolut, or so she thought. In reality, scammers were behind it. They contacted her a year ago and eventually made off with 135,000 euros, all of Martine’s savings, including her deceased husband’s inheritance.
“They always say that ‘https’ is safe, so I don’t understand it, I don’t understand it,” she sighs in front of the SudInfo camera. “And it does say Revolut. I also signed contracts from Revolut, I gave my identity card, I gave everything. Everything was clear, for me it was real.” She trusted a certain Laura Delcourt, who pretended to be someone from Revolut. Delcourt, a financial consultant based in Paris, allayed her initial doubts and assured her it was not a scam. “I was able to simply deposit my money and get it back without any problem. I tested that and indeed, I was able to withdraw my money again. Because of that deception I continued to deposit money.”
Everything seemed fine on her computer screen. Martine could see all the transactions and the high interest rates she received. She then decided to deposit all her savings into the account. “I believed it. That woman called me regularly, very friendly. In short, everything looked good.”
Until one day Martine wanted to withdraw 12,000 euros. That suddenly turned out not to work. She called her financial advisor for an explanation, but he no longer answered. “It was all fake. I haven’t heard from her since, and that was that. I do not have anything anymore. I have lost 135,000 euros.”
Martine did not dare to tell her own bank anything about her new savings account. She also didn’t say anything to her children, and she now deeply regrets that. “I haven’t slept in a week because of it.”
She has filed a complaint with the police, but the chance that she will ever see her money again is very small. She has also contacted other victims abroad. But danger continues to lurk around the corner. She recently received an email informing her that she could recover her money. Fortunately, she did not fall for that, because it was a case of phishing. “I’ll never get caught again. I don’t have a cent left anyway. They can’t blackmail me anymore.” Martine knows that she will now have a hard time making ends meet on her small pension.
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