My mum fell victim to a scam

Aim

My mum would be absolutely mortified by the idea of this but am doing so as it was suggested by a few lovely people who wanted to chip in.

Last week my mum became the victim of a scam, that has seen her lose all financial security.

She ain’t got no money. She never has. At 73, she still works as a carer. Although she’s done less shifts recently because she’s just had a second hip operation. Safe to say, times are tight.

So when she somehow heard about A.I investing, she found her way to FinsburyMarkets.io and was excited to be promised riches by a couple of grotty little ballsacks going by the names of Ruby and Damien.

Sure, the company were flagged as a potential scam by the Financial Conduct Authority but she got on well with Ruby and Damien and they convinced her that they were ‘high level trained’ and the FCA is bull. My mum began to get to know them and trusted them.

Ruby was born in the same year as my brother and told my mum about a trip she’d taken recently to see her own mum.

And Damien? Well, we’ve all been duped by a charming man who sounds a bit like the devil. That’s just science.

So, with what little savings she had, my mum started investing.

At first, it was a few hundred pounds. Ruby was excited to tell my mum that she had immediately made profit.

She encouraged my mum to put in more money; this time, her money doubled. Ruby transferred my mum the profits, who was excited to see real money arrive back in her account.

She was excited, hoping to perhaps be able to book a holiday or like, have enough to pay for a care home one day when she’s properly off her tree.

At this point, Rubes and the devil told my mum that she would need to set up a new account, the process might be a bit confusing but they would guide my mum through every step of the way. They gave her a link to follow and took down all of the necessary information: including my mum’s address, DOB, N.I number, photo of her council tax bill, etc, etc.

My mum was delighted and touched that lovely Ruby, a girl the same age as my brother, was devoting so much of her time to helping her.

Ruby was also excited, she’d bonded with my mum and was genuinely happy to see her making such a great return on investment.

So, Ruby suggested they go up to the next level. If there was enough money in the account, then the big clever A.I would be able to buy stocks as soon as the prices dropped. Or whatever the financial lingo is, of which I have no clue. But if big A.I was going to invest, it needed it quickly.

At this point, my mum gave them £10,000.

(side note, writing that last sentence just made me well-up. Which tbf, feels like something Ruby would say BUT I’M NOT YOU RUBY, I JUST HAVE SOME COMPASSION RUBY, YOU FATBERG.)

By now my mum had invested £13,000.

But that wasn’t enough for fatberg, she wanted more. She wanted another £10k.

But £10k isn’t exactly easy to come by when you’re a 73 year old working class woman who works in a care home and would rather eat a mouldy potato than see it go to waste.

My mum’s building society were being slow in transferring her the 10k. Ruby was not happy. Ruby needed it and she needed it fast, she needed it by the time the Swiss banks closed at 6pm, if not my mum would never become rich and A.I would probably catch fire or something.

At this point, my mum paused and thought hang on, if I’m investing £23k, I should probably let my kids know, feels pretty big, I’ll send a message on the Whatsapp group:

“I need your advice... I started trading on an offshore online platform.. the sort that can be very risky.. I have put £10,000 in it.. have been told that if I add another £10k can take more advantage of GAP market.. (in other words predict potential high gains using Ai) was going to do yesterday but cash hadn't come through from my building society. The firm is Finsburymarkets.io.. warned against by FCA.. because of no protection.. is a trading platform using AI which I do find credible. Allegedly registered in Coronos Islands but I can't prove this.. Slept on it... on one hand think could be profitable The other hand no protection if it goes belly up... Should I take the gamble...? Am I temped by greed.. or being stupid? Opinion please..”

To which I replied, in a voicenote, something along the lines of

MUM STOP STOP, MUM, STOP SENDING THEM MONEY, MUM WHAT THE.... MUM STOP, MUM, MUMMMM NO STOP MUMMM. I love you, I support you, I am here for you, STOP MUM... STOP.

She thanked me for my solid advice, said she needed to make a cup of tea and that she would ask Ruby & Damien for £3k back and that they could still keep the other 10k to invest.

She told Ruby she needed the money, Ruby was disappointed, did my mum not trust her? She felt disrespected. Which, to be fair to Rubes, is true. I have not one slice of respect for that fatberg.

The next 24 hours was then a complicated campaign of me and my brother trying to convince our mum that she was being scammed. Including me posting a video on Instagram that saw a huge rally of support from so many wonderful people, friends, strangers (and also some trolls, big shout out to @davidgongins and his “YAP YAP YAP” and @billbaines2's despair that I have the right to vote).

But my mum was completely under their spell. After a day of talking to us, friends, crime agencies, financial fraud people, she had heard all of the information and still thought it might be a good investment.

Eventually the penny dropped and my mum finally realised that she hadn’t been investing in A.I trading. She had been scammed and she had lost £13,000.

She felt, still feels, terrible. She feels silly, vulnerable, old, like she’s caused trouble, gullable and is consumed by that wobbly thud of nausea and regret that you get when you’ve just given away any hope of financial security to some anonymous criminals.

She logged it as a crime, registered with CIFA, and crucially, sent all of the required evidence to Revolut, the bank that she used to transfer the funds. Apparently there are systems and laws in place to help with this kind of thing, to be able to give money back to victims like my mum.

Her bank, Revolut, reviewed the situation and got back to her, to let her know that they’re on Ruby & Damien’s side.

It was my mum’s fault. Yes it was a highly sophisticated scam but she fell for it, so, unlucky babes, soz you lost £13,000, not our problem.

And so this brings me to the end of this post but sadly, not the end of this tale.

We don’t have a clue how this works. Revolut have said that she is welcome to submit more evidence. But we don’t know what words Revolut have to hear or what we do next. But surely there is a way she can get her money back.

Some parents are absolute wasters but my mum is a diamond. The £13k she has lost is more than she was earning a year when she was (whack your violins out), a single mum, working as a nurse, looking after us as teenagers and being an absolute golden rock of a mother and a woman.

So, if you can help, or know of someone who can, please do get in touch. Or if you just want to troll me, feel free, cos your cute little comments drive up my engagement.

Ok thanks for reading.

Absolutely obsessed with you if you’ve got this far.

Jo xx

Above is the original post I wrote about my mum's experience (except I've had to remove some of my more 'expressive' words - @josomner for the og post). Some lovely people said if there was a Crowdfunder in her name then they'd be happy to chip in. This is totally outside my mum's comfort zone - she doesn't know about this yet and would probably be completely mortified to find out. So, I am not asking anyone to give anything, it's only for those who feel they would like to. Absolutely obsessed with you if you do, but not in a Ruby way. Thank you xx

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Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 2nd December 2026 at 12:11pm