New ‘incredibly convincing’ could drain your bank account

Labour MP Emma Hardy took to Twitter to warn people of the fake message. One person responded to say they were taken in by the scam and they know people who have lost money to the fraudsters.Ms Hardy, who is MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle shared a screenshot of the message on the social media platform, with the message: ‘Latest spam! Watch out for messages like this everyone.’The fake message read: ‘Hi Mum I smashed my phone and I’m using a friends phone to message you and phone is about to die Could you message me on WhatsApp, my new number is 07…’The scammers often go on to ask the victim to send over funds to help them supposedly pay for something urgently.One sign that a message may be fraudulent is poor spelling or grammar errors, such as the lack of full stops in the message above.READ MORE: Mortgage holders who are ‘worried about rates’ urged to make important check or risk fee Victims can lose thousands of pounds to the ‘Mum and dad’ Whatsapp scam (Image: GETTY)Twitter user @creativeblock_ responded to share their experience of being contacted by the scammers.They said: ‘I fell for the message and the conversation was incredibly convincing. I got as far as getting the card reader out of the drawer before double checking via his work.’I’m not an idiot, they know which buttons to press! I know two people that lost money to it in the last week.’Ms Hardy tagged Action Fraud in her original tweet, a national agency for reporting scam incidents. Victims can lose thousands of pounds to scams (Image: GETTY)A mum from Dorset appeared on This Morning in July to warn others after she lost her life savings of £10,000 to fraudsters pretending to be her son.The 66-year-old said she received messages on WhatsApp from someone pretending to be her son, who was travelling in Mexico at the time.The scammer convinced her that her son had forgotten to pay his bills and she sent them funds in hopes she would be helping him out.TSB said it saw a 58 percent increase in ‘friends and family’ scams in July 2022 compared with the same time last year.