An Australian man has been left $25,00 out of pocket after being caught up in a cruel WhatsApp scam just before Christmas.
Queenslander Martin Carroll was employed in IT for most of his working life, but has struggled to find work in the past couple of years.
The 64-year-old from the Gold Coast had some savings, but his bank balance fell away in recent times and he was desperate for work.
So when he saw what seemed like a potentially good opportunity on social media which didn’t involved trying to sell anything, he decided to look into it.
It required him to pay real money up front for products he was pretending to buy, with the promise that he would then get reimbursed later, and he was initially wary.
But the company, called Ruri, added Mr Carroll to a WhatsApp chat, where others were saying how good the scheme was and encouraged him to sign up.
But it all turned out to be an elaborate scam, and the WhatsApp group members were a key part of it, but he didn’t find that out until it was too late.
The ‘job’ involved filling up an online shopping cart, supposedly to make potential customers believe the site was bisy, and he would be paid up to $400 per week.
Australian man Martin Carroll (pictured with his daughter Natalie) has been left $25,00 out of pocket after being caught up in a cruel scam just before Christmas
The scam worked by having Mr Carroll go through 30 cycles of adding items to his online shopping basket.
He paid for them upfront on the promise of a ‘much bigger’ commission.
When he soon got $70 back, it seemed to be working and legitimate, so he kept going. But that was the only time he got anything back.
Instead, the crooks tricked him into spending more money with ‘special buys’, some of which cost him thousands of dollars.
To keep stringing him along, Mr Carroll was told he was getting the chance to buy more expensive goods as he was on a ‘VIP’ level.
By the time he realised it was all a hoax, he had spent about $25,000 he could not afford.
His daughter Natalie has set up a GoFundMe to raise some money for her dad.
She said the money he lost came ‘out of his retirement fund, which is heartbreaking considering he doesn’t have much to begin with.
‘My Dad has worked in IT for the past 25 years, and for those years I watched him leave the house at 5am every morning and not get home until 6pm due to work commute,’ she wrote.
Mr Carroll has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which affects his lungs, and he is also showing early signs of memory loss, which his daughter said runs in the family
‘He’s an extremely dedicated and hard working man, and in 2009 at the age of 49 he was finally able to purchase his first and only home.
‘However, due to the time this has led him to not even having half of the mortgage paid off leaving him with over $300,000 left to pay off.’
Making matters worse, Mr Carroll has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which affects his lungs, and he is also showing early signs of memory loss, which his daughter said runs in the family.
‘I fear my Dad’s future as he does not have enough money to retire with his mortgage, so losing the additional (money) is heartbreaking,’ Ms Carroll said.
Her father’s health conditions have been affecting his ability to work and this financial blow at the hands of cruel criminals was the last thing he needed in the run up to Christmas.
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