My friend sent me £1,000 – but something was wrong

As soon as I answered the call from ‘HMRC’, I heard an automated voice bellow that I was an income tax defaulter. 

The automated message ended with: ‘Press one to talk to an HMRC representative’.

Confused, I did what it said, then I heard a man on the other line.

‘Yes, tell me?’ he began, clearly wanting to create a situation where I was the one asking help from him, instead of him asking me for information. 

‘You are the one who called me’, I replied confidently.

The caller immediately launched into an intimidating line of questioning, and asked me if I was originally from India – presumably to imply that my leave to stay in the UK was being threatened by the alleged tax issue.

I stopped him midway and bluntly said: ‘I am very busy and you should not scam people.’ I then hung up and used the block and report feature on my phone.

Thankfully, I knew exactly what to do in this situation because something similar had happened to my best friend, Lily* , just weeks earlier.

Unfortunately, she was scammed into sending a total stranger hundreds of pounds – and I was almost complicit too.

I first met Lily two years ago after we both came to the UK as international students. Ever since, we have been by each other’s sides through many ups and downs – including both landing full-time jobs here.

Throughout this time, we have never borrowed more than £20 from each other. That’s why what happened next all felt so odd.

One Friday afternoon earlier this year, I received messages from Lily that shocked me. ‘Hi Khushi, this is a little urgent – are you there?’

Worried, I asked her what was going on and she told me she would be transferring £998 to my bank account from hers. She then needed me to transfer it back to her Revolut account immediately.

This felt like a really strange request so alarm bells started ringing in my head. But the message had come from the same WhatsApp chat we always used so at least that felt legit.

I tried to call her to confirm that nobody had stolen her phone, but she didn’t pick up. A few moments later, she texted me that she would call me back in 10 minutes.

I waited, but – instead of a phone call – I received a selfie from her as ‘proof’ that she was the one contacting me. Still not convinced something dodgy wasn’t going on, I then tried to ask her questions, like what the money was for, or why she needed me to act as a middle person to send money to her own account.

But she just kept responding with vague promises to explain everything later. I didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly, my phone pinged to reveal a notification that the £998 had landed in my account. In one final attempt to get to the bottom of it, I requested her to video call me. But she didn’t respond.

Even though her punctuation, spelling, and texting style was consistent with all our previous conversations, Lily’s tone sounded off. She seemed extremely worried.

After much deliberation, I decided to send the full amount to the account details she sent through, but my bank blocked the transfer. It said that it looked like suspicious activity so I would need to call a number and explain what was going on.

I was not surprised, so I asked her via text what to tell the bank, and she asked me to just say that I was transferring to a friend. Despite me asking again and again, she would not share any more details.

I decided to be completely honest when I called my bank, so – while I told them that this was for a friend – they were not satisfied with the lack of information and said that they would have to keep the transaction blocked.

When the bank finally released the money a few hours later, I reached out to Lily and that’s when the truth came out. She told me that she had been the victim of an elaborate scam.

A man had called her, telling her that she owed HMRC a lot of money in tax because someone had opened foreign accounts in her name. He detailed a list of consequences – including deportation, revoking her right to work in the UK, and freezing her bank accounts.

To prove he was legit, he then asked her to go to the official HMRC website and see the number written there, telling her that she would receive a phone call from a solicitor using it. The scammers actually mirrored the official number, so she was convinced that this was a government call. 

An official-sounding person made Lily write down the five violations that she had been charged with, which were Violation HMRC code 1100L, Violation of Her Majesty’s Government Regulation, Wilful Misrepresentation to Government Organisation, Tax Fraud and Tax Evasion, and Theft of Deception. 

The call was full of threats and manipulation, so she felt terrified and followed the instructions laid out.

He made her create a new Revolut account and asked to first transfer money from her regular account to Revolut and then to the ‘HMRC account’. It started with him taking around £900 as the ‘tax’ that she owed.

He then kept asking her to transfer more and more money to pay off the ‘fines’ that she had accrued against the five violations. He refused to let her get off the call or talk to anyone, threatening that this was confidential government business and she would be in even more trouble if she disclosed the details of what was going on to anyone.

At some point, her HSBC account stopped allowing her to transfer the amounts to the Revolut account, and that is when she reached out to me to be the middle person. She ended up losing hundreds of pounds – even without my transfer going through.

Lily still has trouble talking about the ordeal. In that moment, there was a lot of shock, and when she started processing it she realised how violating it had been. She described it like an emotional assault because there had been manipulation all through the call. 

She did not know who to reach out to and felt very isolated and overwhelmed. She spoke to her boyfriend about the situation but has decided to not tell her family about it.

In the aftermath, she got new bank cards and filed police reports, but the police took a long time to get back to her. 

Sadly, in the end, the money could not be recovered.

For months after that, Lily was anxious when she had to undergo any bureaucratic processes in the UK and would end up getting triggered easily.

These scammers take advantage of the fact that international students and migrant workers are more vulnerable and easy to threaten, as they probably don’t have an in-depth knowledge of UK tax laws.

According to a FraudTrack 2024 report from global accountancy and business advisory firm BDO, the volume of fraud in the UK in 2023 reached £2.4billion, which was a 104% increase on 2022.

To try to combat this, many UK universities now alert students of the danger and even the UK government itself has a page about HMRC-related scams.

And yet, it can be tough to spot the red flags when you are being targeted and threatened – especially as scammers keep getting more and more sophisticated.

Lily’s experience has taught me to cut the call if contacted by one of these so-called authorities, and call back on the official number to verify if the call came from it or not. And, if the person on the other end keeps forcing you to stay on, that should definitely make you suspicious.

It is also important to be wary of anyone asking you to transfer money with a sense of urgency. You can even run things by a legal advisor, a trusted person in authority (like student services) or a financially-savvy loved one.

By sharing Lily’s story, I hope that I can help others avoid crooks like I managed to do, just a few weeks after my best friend was scammed.

If in doubt, please just hang up.

*Name has been changed

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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