A mother living in Australia, Jean Linton, received a message on the instant messaging application “WhatsApp”, from someone who said it was her son.
In the details reported by the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, the person claiming to be her son said that his smartphone, which he had in his possession, broke, and he is currently talking to her from a new phone with a new number.
In the letter, the “alleged son” asked the mother for a sum of $4,500.
The son of the Australian woman lives in the United States.
Motivated by the strong feelings of motherhood, the mother without hesitation transferred the required amount of money to the details of the bank account that was in the “WhatsApp” message immediately.
The mother says that she was the one who warned people to do this thing or refrain from another to avoid fraud, due to the nature of her work in the field of business, but now she has fallen prey to a fraud.
She stated, “I can’t believe it… I feel so stupid.”
The mother tried to call the new number to no avail, and later she told her son what had happened, and he went crazy, for he did not ask for anything like that.
She stated that she knew that her son wanted to buy a house in the United States and needed money, so she thought he was underfunded, so she transferred that money.
Despite the procedures she followed, such as freezing the account, the cyber security team at the bank assured her that there was no hope of recovering the funds.