Entertainment
Glow Up series 3: Eliminated make-up artist Nic scammed out of all her money following exit
Glow Up series 3 star Nic was scammed into losing all her money just weeks after being eliminated from the competition.
The London-born make-up artist, who was the first out of the 10 contestants to leave the BBC Three competition show after failing to impress judges Val Garland and Dominic Skinner with her clumpy lash technique, was targeted by nasty con artists who posed as her bank.
To make matters worse, the incident happened just one day after her aunt and uncle were admitted to hospital with coronavirus.
Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk about her stressful ordeal, Nic recalled: ‘I got a phone call and it came up on my phone as Santander and they pretended to be Santander saying that I’d been scammed.
‘My online banking wasn’t working at the time anyway, so it was all too perfect for them to just make the most of it and get me to transfer money into a new bank account, which I thought was mine.’
As a result, Nic had all her money stolen from her account, totaling over 2k, but luckily Santander was able to get her the money back.
‘I managed to get it back two weeks later, thank God,’ she said, relieved, adding that her aunt and uncle recovered from Covid-19.
Things have been looking up for Nic since her dramatic January, who said she was able to ‘rebuild and refresh’ the following month.
Santander’s advice for suspicious texts or emails
- Look very carefully at emails or texts that come out of the blue supposedly from a bank or another trusted organisation.
- An unsolicited text or email from your bank or other genuine organisation will never ask you to provide passwords, personal or financial information in a message.
- Be extremely wary of links and attachments and never enter your banking details after clicking on a link. An email link may take you to a fake website which imitates Santander.
- Watch out for language that says things such as ‘you must act’.
- If you get an email or text from somebody asking you to change some payment details don’t do it without checking it out thoroughly first.
- If in any doubt at all, don’t reply. Phone the organisation sending you the text or email on their official phone number which you can look up on their website.
‘Honestly, I think there’s so much more of a fire to rebuild the brand now,’ she said, speaking of her make-up company Disco Dust.
‘I feel like had I not gone home first, maybe I wouldn’t be like, “right, let’s do this”.’
‘I’ve been working on Disco Dust,’ Nic continued. ‘ I’ve got a new website I’m working on, new products I’m working on. There’s a whole new visual rebrand so it’s really exciting as well.’
Glow Up airs Tuesdays at 7pm on BBC iPlayer.
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