'Mum sent them £140,000': How to spot the signs a loved one is being scammed
She then posted it to a Shanghai Hospital where he awaited a life-saving operation.Once he was better they would be together - but the demands kept coming. Then a new man came on the scene - he'd been kidnapped and if she didn't pay the ransom he would be killed.In total she sent £140,000 to romance scammers.The first time Helen knew something was wrong was when her mum accidentally sent messages intended for the criminals to her. Then she became more secretive."It became obvious to me something was going on again," she says.Here's how to spot the signs a loved one is being scammed and how to help them.Scam Secrets: How to Help Someone Who's Being ScammedYour relative is in the grip of a scam.
- ▪She then posted it to a Shanghai Hospital where he awaited a life-saving operation.Once he was better they would be together - but the demands kept coming.
- ▪Then a new man came on the scene - he'd been kidnapped and if she didn't pay the ransom he would be killed.In total she sent £140,000 to romance scammers.The first time Helen knew something was wrong was when her mum accidentally sent messa
- ▪Then she became more secretive."It became obvious to me something was going on again," she says.Here's how to spot the signs a loved one is being scammed and how to help them.Scam Secrets: How to Help Someone Who's Being ScammedYour relativ
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| Original publisher | BBC News — UK |
| Canonical URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c674evx4p1x1o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss |
| Publication time | Tue, 29 Sep 2026 23:09:37 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-29T23:12:33.870Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-29T23:12:33.870Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | Um3in5g49Mtx · 1 stories |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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'Mum sent them £140,000': How to spot the signs a loved one is being scammedImage source, HelenImage caption, Helen noticed changes in her mother's behaviour and discovered she had fallen victim to a romance scamByEmily DoughtyPublished1 minute agoHead over heels in love with a man she met online, Helen's mother hollowed out a book and put £10,000 cash inside. She then posted it to a Shanghai Hospital where he awaited a life-saving operation.Once he was better they would be together - but the demands kept coming. Then a new man came on the scene - he'd been kidnapped and if she didn't pay the ransom he would be killed.In total she sent £140,000 to romance scammers.The first time Helen knew something was wrong was when her mum accidentally sent messages intended for the criminals to her.
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