The Traitors star Sam Little 'scammed out of £40,000 lifesavings'
The Traitors star Sam Little, who was a Faithful on series four, has opened up about being caught out by a devastated scam.
The Traitors star Sam Little has revealed he was scammed out of his £40,000 lifesavings.
The account manager, who appeared as a Faithful on the latest series of the BBC gameshow, has opened up about the "gut-wrenching" ordeal, which he has found "really difficult to deal with".
In a video shared on Instagram, he said: "I was scammed out of a life-changing amount of money, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot since, and some of the reasons I haven’t spoken about it.
"There’s a lot of shame, embarrassment, there’s disappointment, there’s general privacy."
However, he wants to use his experience to warn other people who might be tricked by the same scam.
Sam explained: "It was a Sunday afternoon and I have a rule that I don’t answer the phone to any number which I don’t have saved, and that way I avoid a potential fraudster getting in touch with me. [The scammers] got me to ring them."
He received some text messages from what appeared to be a verified banking number referencing an account breach related to his cryptocurrency, and he called them.
Once Sam was on the phone, he said the scammers had replicated his account page despite him not needing to share passwords or codes, and they used "fear tactics" to get him to move his money.
He noted he had "several different investments across the accounts", but "all of them".
He added: "They took me through one by one and said they need all of this for our insurance case.
"There was the most sickening moment when Alex, my wife, came in and she googled the number that I had rang, it just said, 'red flag, UK phishing number, scam, do not call'.
"My heart just fell through the floor. By that point, it was too late; they’d emptied everything, they hung up, I tried to ring back, couldn’t get through and panic just set in. This was £40,000, I’m talking lifesavings."
He contacted the police, and while a case was logged, he has been faced with the reality that nothing can be done at this point.
He urged his followers to "double check" before answering the phone, and admitted he has been left devastated by the ordeal.
He said: "I was in a really bad way. It’s not just money and that much money is a life-changing amount of money to anyone and it’s just getting more and more common."
