An Aussie mum has lost thousands of dollars after she received a six-word text message from crafty scammers posing as her estranged son.
Heijin, from Brisbane, had not been in contact with her 25-year-old son Daniel Lee for several years when she received a text from an unknown number in August.
‘Mum, my phone is not working,’ the six-word message read.
‘She thought it was me, so she went ahead and gave it a call and according to her, it was someone that sounded like me,’ Mr Lee told Daily Mail .
‘He could have used AI, or he could have just not even sounded like me – my mum was so desperate to hear from me that she may have just thought a deep-voiced man was me.’
The scammer asked Heijin for help with bills, urging her to pay a total $4,000 into two bank accounts until she accepted ‘out of desperation’.
The full extent of the scam was revealed when Heijin and her son reconnected over lunch last Friday after years of being estranged.
‘She said she was glad to help me with money – I said, what are you talking about? I’ve never asked you for money,’ Mr Lee recalled.
On realising she had sent $4,000 to a stranger, Heijin felt ‘sick to her stomach’ and couldn’t finish her meal during what was meant to be a happy reunion.
Mr Lee said it was ‘heartbreaking’ that his mum had thought she was sending him money to help him progress his dancing career.
He said emotions had been ‘volatile’ when his mother was targeted by scammers because their family pet of 24 years Ginger had recently been put down.
‘This was a devastating blow not just to her financially, but also emotionally, as it took a toll on her sense of trust. Seeing her heart sink when I saw her realise she didn’t send the money to me tore me up inside,’ he wrote.
‘I want to make sure she gets everything she’s owed, because it’s just not right. I want to show her that I love her still.’
Mr Lee and his mother are not the only Queensland family who have been scammed.
The Rose family lost $40,000 after scammers tricked them into handing over their house deposit just days after they purchased their dream home.
A cunning scammer hacked into the email thread between them and the conveyancing law firm in charge of settling the sale of the house.