Entertainment
Loose Women’s Denise Welch gave pin away when fooled by ‘long game’ phone scam
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Loose Women presenter Denise Welch has revealed that she was fooled by a scam when she received a call from someone claiming to be her bank’s fraud department, persuading her to disclose her pin.
On Wednesday’s edition of Loose Women, the panel – which also included Kaye Adams, Brenda Edwards and Janet Street-Porter – addressed the danger of cleverly enacted phone scams that could trick people into unknowingly losing money.
Denise, 62, explained that while she views herself as a ‘woman of the world’, she can ‘fall for scams very easily’, so her partner, Lincoln Townley, keeps her posted on them.
Nonetheless, a couple of years ago she was unable to suss out a con when she received a call supposedly from her bank’s fraud department.
Denise said that while it ‘sounds so naive’, she was tricked because the scam was carried out ‘over a couple of days’.
‘Eventually they asked me for one of my pin numbers and I gave it to them,’ she admitted.
Denise added that when she told Lincoln, 48, his ‘head almost exploded’.
She warned that in spite of the money that was stolen, the part of the scam that astounded her the most was ‘the fact they were playing the long game’.
‘It wasn’t just one phone call,’ she said, recollecting how it was carried out over a series of days.
Denise also said that her father Vin Welch, who she has recently been helping to take care of after he became unwell, is a ‘friendly, gregarious person’ and so also falls for scams as well when the callers are friendly towards him.
‘They’re very clever with it,’ she acknowledged.
Janet, 74, explained that when your actual bank calls you, they will always ask you questions ‘in a certain sequence’.
Plus – very importantly – ‘they’ll never ask for your pin number’, she stressed, stating that your bank will instead go through your previously set security questions.
During a recent instalment of This Morning, money expert Martin Lewis had to break the shattering news to a caller that she had likely lost £8,000 after falling for a scam.
‘The best we can hope for is to thank you for your bravery for inspiring others to not do this,’ he told her.
Loose Women airs weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV.
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