A man and his wife were left feeling "totally helpless" when fraudsters struck during their cruise holiday.
Stephen Ratchford, 64, from Grimsby, was expecting a relaxing getaway with his wife Karen but ended up with the stress of trying to cancel multiple loans taken out in his name, including a £25,000 loan with HSBC.
The couple flew out to Malta on October 3 and joined a cruise ship. But just a couple of days into their holiday while in Split, Croatia, they noticed they had been "SIM-jacked" and no longer had control of their mobile phone numbers.
He said: "Some scammer got hold of new SIM cards with our numbers - which obviously meant we lost ours - and they had total control of our phone numbers."
Having never "pressed a link or answered a phone call" that was suspicious, Stephen was at a loss as to how the crime happened. But once his mobile phone number was compromised, scammers were able to use two-step verification text messages to access his emails and accounts.
The mobile provider Stephen and Karen used, iD Mobile, apologised and said it had tightened its security following the incident.
Stephen said the scammers took money out of both of the joint bank accounts he and his wife share. They also took out loans and applied for overdrafts, which Stephen said felt "absolutely horrendous".
He said: "When you are stuck on the other side of the world on a ship, and you hear this sort of thing going on, it is quite worrying. Thank goodness P&O let us use the phone, otherwise God knows where we would have been."
Stephen said being a victim of fraud "definitely messes with your head" and he admits to feeling "paranoid" in the aftermath. He added: "It's just the ease and impunity with which they are able to do this, and then the problems we have trying to rectify it."
Ultimately, Stephen did not end up losing money because all the banks involved began cancelling the loans and overdrafts once the fraud was identified.
Stephen added: "I want to raise awareness that two-tier verification is only any good if you are in charge of your phone... I'm quite savvy and if I've never heard of a SIM card swap I'm guessing a lot of people haven't."
SIM Swapping, also known as "SIM-jacking", is when a criminal has your phone number moved to a SIM card that's in a phone they control. They then receive verification codes and can attempt to break into your accounts and reset passwords.
Stephen claimed the scammers also racked up a £150 bill on his and his wife's mobile phone accounts with premium messaging services, but iD Mobile said it covered the charges.
A spokesperson for iD Mobile said: "We’re sorry to hear about what’s happened here, and sincerely apologise to the customer for this. By December 2024, we had covered £150 in charges accumulated on his account and provided a gesture of goodwill payment of a further £75. Additionally, we have instituted further security measures to strengthen our verification processes before actions are taken relating to customer accounts."
An HSBC UK spokesperson said: "We are sorry to hear Mr Ratchford was the victim of a fraud. Fraudsters are devious criminals who use every trick in the book to steal money from innocent victims, without any thought or care for the impact it might have on their mental or financial wellbeing.
"Often scams start with simple information-gathering through social engineering where personal information will be harvested for use in the future for often life-changing, amounts.
"It can be difficult for banks and customers to pinpoint exactly where customer information has been harvested, but we all have a role to play in preventing fraud and scams.
"While we have experienced teams across the bank helping protect customers around the clock, we would encourage all customers to keep abreast of common scams and our latest scams warnings and advice by visiting our Fraud and Security Centre or Get Safe Online."
Claire Webb, Acting Director of Action Fraud, said: "Action Fraud can confirm that it received a number of reports on 28 October 2024. Each report was assessed by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) at the City of London Police but were not passed onto a police force for investigation. They will continue to be reviewed against new information received from Action Fraud reports.
"Over 850,000 reports are made to the NFIB every year and not all cases can be passed on for further investigation. Reports are assessed against a number of criteria, but not every case of fraud will result in a judicial outcome. There are different ways a report can be dealt with when it cannot be passed to a police force.
"These include the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit (NECVU) helping victims to reclaim monies lost. Reports are vital in helping the police develop intelligence and take disruptive activity to prevent other people from falling victim, such as taking down websites, telephone numbers and email addresses linked to fraud."
