Ballymena man conned out of 'up to £1800' in sophisticated scam
A Ballymena man has fallen victim to a sophisticated scam that saw his friend's Facebook account hacked in order to con money out of him.
Chris Ibbotson, a Co Antrim photographer, received a Facebook message from one of his friends on Saturday night.
In it, his friend outlined problems he was having with his PayPal account, telling Chris that he could not get it verified.
The account had been hacked by a scammer, who asked Chris whether he would mind receiving money from 'customers' in order to forward it on.
Not suspecting anything was amiss, Chris agreed and received the money to his own PayPal account, before moving it to his bank account and then transferring it to his friend.
What he didn't know was that the person he was talking to was not his friend, but instead a scammer.
The hacker then claimed the original transfers of money to Chris were fraudulent, in order to claim the money back.
It meant he now had the supposedly 'fraudulent' money back from Chris and was then able to claim a further £460 out of the account.
The total of the cash transactions carried out was £1800 and Chris is living in fear the rest will come out of his account, which he can't close down as it has a negative balance due to the crime.
"He was seriously convincing, he was saying 'I know it's late at night and I seriously appreciate what you're doing' so I really thought I was just helping out my friend," said Chris.
"I woke the following morning to a message from my real friend to say his account had been hacked and his sister had also been scammed by the same person.
"I started feeling very sick, I sat up and thought I was going to pass out.
"I could feel my head getting dizzy, I was hyperventilating."
Landscape photography is how Chris makes his money and his orders are processed through his PayPal account on his website.
Because he has not yet paid off the debt left by the hacker, he has not been able to shut down the account and instead has had to close the online side of his business.
"At the minute, there's no sales, leading up to Christmas and it's just awful," he said.
Chris has spoken to Downtown/Cool FM news in the hope that he can help another person falling victim to the same scam.
"This appeared to come completely from a friend of mine on Facebook.
"Not an online friend, a real, physical friend that I know personally.
"If you know the person and you've other ways of contacting them or verifying it's them, definitely do it."