Hillsborough woman loses £77,000 in scam

They hope to raise close to £77,000 to help Amanda buy a house after she was the victim of on-line scammers when her solicitors’ email was hacked and she was conned.

One of her friends Claire Elliott, who set up the page said, “We’re doing this because Amanda has been through so much in the last few years: a marriage break-up, the loss of her mother to cancer, her dad’s ongoing illness and raising her two little girls on her own.

“Yet she still manages to be a tower of strength to those in need around her.

“She set up a very popular ‘chums and crumbs’ supper club in Hillsborough for people who are on their own.”

Anyone wanting to donate can do so by logging onto https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/amandas-house

Amanda lost her money as she was was completing the purchase of a house with her solicitor having previously sold her marital home and been asked to transfer the money for the completion of the sale.

During BBC Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan Show she said: “I had sold my marital home to have a fresh start and that was the only reason why I had so much money in my bank account it was the equity from that. My solicitor emailed me confirming the amount I had to send her for the purchase of the house and I emailed her back asking for the bank details. Her reception then emailed me back the bank details.”

In a second email, Amanda who was due to transfer the money received an almost identical email from her solicitor’s reception asking her to send the money to a new account number.

She added: “At 4.30pm I received an email saying, ‘Sorry Amanda we sent the wrong bank details, apologies please find below the new details’. I only later found out that the second email was a bogus email.”

Amanda transferred the amount to complete the sale of the house.

“The email that came to me, it didn’t even come into my inbox as a new email, it came into my thread, with the previous messages I had sent to my solicitor,” she said.

“I got an email on Monday morning from my solicitor saying they hadn’t received the money, I emailed back saying ‘that’s very strange’ and I sent it to Barclays which was the bank in the second email.”

It soon became clear she had been conned.

Amanda said: “I’m helpless, I’ve been to banks, police, my solicitor, everyone is telling me your money is gone.”