Woman hands thousands to scammers pretending to be EuroMillions winners
| Published date | 12 August 2022 |
| Publication title | WalesOnline (Wales) |
Now, she says she wants the scammers found and caught and wants to warn other people as the experience has left her feeling violated. Joe and Jess Thwaite, from just outside Gloucester, won the record-breaking £184,262,899 jackpot with a Lucky Dip ticket on May 10.
Clare said: "I just wanted to help my mum out and pay for the bills. She's a pensioner and needed help with the cost of living at the moment -I needed to sort myself out too.
"I want to warn other people because at the end of the day this has left me feeling violated -I want them found and caught."
Clare first made contact with the people she believed to be EuroMillions winners Jess and Joe Thwaite on 19 July 2022 when she found what she believed to be their Facebook profiles. The swindlers had created a Facebook group called the ‘joe jess thwaite help foundation’ with supposed stories from others they claimed to have helped.
Clare from Chatham, Kent, reached out to who she believed to be Jess Thwaite via Facebook Messenger. The imposter swiftly got back to her to ask why she wanted the money and then claimed she had spoken with her solicitor and was prepared to hand over £100,000.
The fake Jess told Clare to set up a cryptocurrency account on a crypto investing website called ‘cyptofxinvesting’ and then instructed her to deposit at least $300 to get the wallet set up. After doing so, Clare sent Jess a screenshot to prove she had done what had been asked – and soon after $100,000 appeared in the account.
The next morning, on 20 July, when Clare logged in to withdraw the money, she received a notification telling her she needed to deposit another $950 to take the money from the account. She deposited the money and when she logged in again on 22 July, she expected to be able to withdraw the full amount – but was met with another request for money.
The crypto site was claiming she needed to deposit $1000 dollars as a ‘maintenance fee’ to access the cash and Clare realised something wasn’t right. The fraudulent Jess began messaging Clare on WhatsApp and demanding the $1000 payment but Clare said she had no more money left and told one of her friends about what had happened – who informed...
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