The Traitors star Sam Little has revealed he was conned out of his life savings by ruthless crypto-scammers after falling for a fake phone call.
The account manager appeared on the BBC show earlier this year, but has shared that while the series was airing, he was battling the turmoil of losing thousands of pounds he’d invested under the ruse that he was opening an insurance case.
Sam shared that he fell for the scam after being asked to call a verified phone number, asking him to move his cryptocurrency onto a ‘hardware wallet’ in preparation for an insurance case should the funds ever be lost.
But in reality, the scammers had hacked into his account, and the money was being transferred to them, and Sam said he first realised he’d been conned when his wife Googled the phone number.
Sam said he reported the scam to Report Fraud, but they said they ‘didn’t have the capacity’ to manage the case as it involved crypto-currency.
Report Fraud responded, stating that cases involving cryptocurrency are ‘complex’ and can take lengthy periods of time to assess.
The Traitors star Sam Little has revealed he was conned out of his life savings by ruthless crypto-scammers after falling for a fake phone call
The account manager appeared on the BBC show earlier this year, but has shared that while the series was airing, he was battling the turmoil of losing thousands of pounds he’d invested
Speaking on Friday’s This Morning, Sam explained: ‘As [The Traitors] was airing, I was probably a little bit distracted myself.
‘It caught me in an off moment where I just had a series of text notifications from a verified number, which over the years had sent me verified text messages, asking me to call them, and I actually picked up the phone and called them.
‘I got through, it was a UK landline number, and they were immediately super helpful, super reassuring, before I knew it I was logged onto a crypto account online, which is exactly the same as how you’d log onto your online banking platform, and they were telling me they needed to create an insurance case, should these funds be lost.
‘So I had several investments, in the account, and just one by one they took me through what I thought I was doing, was transferring it to my hardware wallet, which is like a USB device, but actually because they’d somehow replicated or hacked into my account, I was transferring it to their wallet.
‘They were creating an insurance case for all my investments there, all of my savings so that should the funds get lost, we could submit that insurance case for a claim.’
Sam said he was devastated to realise he’d fallen victim to the scam, having worked in sales and the technology sector for many years.
He added: ‘I consider myself quite savvy but these are genuine criminal organisations now, these aren’t two guys in a room chancing their arm, they are working off a sales playbook, and they are very, very good.
‘The amount of times on the phone they’d say ”if you’re not comfortable, just ring us back at a more convenient time.” And I’m just trusting them more and more, but they’re also underpinning that with a bit of panic as well, making me act, and before I knew it, the line went dead and everything was gone.’
Sam said he first realised the con had occurred when his wife began searching the number he’d called, while he was still on the phone.
He said: ‘I was busy on the phone to them being scammed, and I just remember she walked into the room and Googled the number I’d called, it just had ”scam, phishing, do not call this number,” and that moment of realisation, it was almost like the phone dropped then, the line went dead and I just had this moment of world collapsing in.
Sam shared that he first realised he’d been scammed when his wife searched the phone number he’d called and it warned them that it had a history of ‘phishing calls’
‘I tried to call back but they’d cut the number already. Then panic sets in ”what do I do? What do I do?” so I phoned the police. The police tell me it’s not a case of if you get scammed now, it’s when.
‘Went through Report Fraud, got rejected, I can only imagine because they don’t have the capacity to do that internally.
Sam continued: ‘The crypto space is very much unregulated, if it’s a case of money leaving your bank account, banks are very good at refunding that.
‘But the responsibility is on us not to get scammed, there’s so much more banks, UK law, technology companies, there must be something more to take the responsibility away from us.’
Sharing the impact the scam has had on his family, Sam revealed: ‘You feel a great amount of shame, embarrassment, guilt, you don’t want to talk about it.
‘I wish in that moment, when we were sat on the sofa, and I decided to step out of the room, I just said to my wife ”what do you think about this?”
‘Just talk to people about it if you’re unsure, because there is that emotional turmoil that goes with it.’
He added that it had now been six months since the scam had taken place, and he and his family were ‘getting there,’ with his focus now being on sharing his experience to avoid others falling for the same scam.
A cryptocurrency is a form of digital currency that can be used to make transactions online.
It is ‘decentralised’, meaning a bank, government authority or other third party is not involved in transfers or managing its worth.
There are thousands of different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and the infamous Dogecoin, much like there are different types of traditional currency.
Each unit of currency is denoted by encrypted data that can be turned into a ‘key’ which is used to spend or transfer it.
Computer algorithms generate these keys when cryptocurrency is bought, and they can then be stored in a digital ‘wallet’ for the owner to use.
The wallet can be cloud-based or stored on a computer or mobile device – but if you lose it, you’ve lost your entire cryptocurrency investment.
While cryptocurrencies are supposed to hold their value through economic dips, global conflicts or policy changes, this hasn’t always proven correct.
The cryptocurrency market is also unregulated in the UK, meaning any scams wouldn’t be covered by the same claims should a similar con occur that resulted in a loss of money from a bank account.
