'Mum sent them £140,000': How to spot the signs a loved one is being scammed

In a bid to get her mum to open up, Helen decided "to try and be calm about this and open up the possibility she could trust me". Dale Richardson, a police fraud protect officer, encourages families to be "curious but not confrontational". "I like to break it down... and listen to them and say, right, how did you meet? And what have they said?"Helen convinced her mum to allow her to speak to the scammer on a video call.She says she quickly spotted the deepfake as the image was "fuzzy" and his voice out of sync with his movements.Helen tried to convince her mum the man she was speaking to was not who he said he was but she did not believe her."She was saying I made her feel disgusted and ashamed," says Helen. "And that I should let her have her relationship and not intervene."Forensic linguist Dr Lis Carter, who is part of the Scam Secrets team, stresses the importance of being patient and careful with your words when trying to help loved ones who believe they are in a genuine relationship."Being a family member coming into that, you are 'destroying' that happiness." Unable to break her mum away from the scam, Helen turned to her bank. She had a lasting power of attorney, meaning she could act on behalf of her mum and set up safeguards for her accounts.Jim Winters, head of economic crime at Nationwide, says anyone who believes a family member is being scammed should contact their bank."They might be limited in what they can share with you for data privacy reasons, but they can take steps to safeguard that account," he says."Once we know that a customer is being defrauded we can spot the hallmarks very quickly and take steps to break that spell."To date, the bank that Helen's mum uses has returned £45,000 to her account.Though Helen changed her mum's phone number three times, she continued to give the new one to the scammers. Helen eventually replaced her mum's smartphone with one that could only do calls and texts. Winters also advises "completely resetting" a loved ones digital footprint by changing telephone numbers, email address and social media accounts."That's what makes you visible, that's what puts you out there. So taking steps to reset all of that is so important," he says.